The relationship of enuresis nocturna and adenoid hypertrophy

Objectives: This study was organized to assess the relationship of enuresis nocturna (EN) and upper airway obstruction (UAO) in children. Material and Methods: This study was multi-centrically and prospectively designed including 79 children who presented to a urology clinic with symptoms of EN between January 2013 and February 2014. Sixty-four age-matched children with no history of urological complaints were randomly recruited from children admitted to a pediatric clinic as a control group. All children and parents were asked to fill out a dysfunctional elimination syndrome (DES) questionnaire and children were examined by an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist to evaluate the UAO. Descriptive statistics, chisquare and Mann-Whitney-U tests were used to compare variables. Results: The mean ages of the 79 children (48 male, 31 female) in the study group and the 64 children (41 male, 23 female) in the control group were 10.14+/-3.38 and 9.17+/- 2.85, respectively. Family history of the study showed that 19% of the children’s mothers, 10% of the children’s fathers and 37% of the children’s siblings had experienced EN. There was a significant difference between the study and the control groups in terms of urge to urinate, bladder emptying, bowel symptoms and psychological stress. There was also a significant difference between rates of tonsillar hypertrophy and nasopharynx obstruction in the EN group (p = 0.009). Conclusion: In this study we found that half of the children with EN had tonsillar hypertrophy, which was significantly higher than in the control group. Further studies are needed to clarify the exact relationship between UAO and EN.