Tonsillitis and Peritonsillar Abscess – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

tonsillitis and peritonsillar abscess in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. One side bulging
2. A jaw that will not open
3. Letting it out
4. A thick voice
5. Too small to sit still
6. One bigger than the other
7. A week later
8. Four hours after
9. Both ears hurt
10. What to eat
11. Worse before better
12. Nothing going down
13. Worse again
14. A stiff neck
15. Cough and red eyes
16. Where the pus sits
17. Twice in a year
18. Down the neck

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: A growth arising in the wall of the throat, The muscle beside the tonsil is inflamed and tight, A week of antibiotics by mouth with no other treatment, A foreign body resting in the upper airway, Formal drainage in theatre, since he cannot cooperate awake, Give two weeks of antibiotics and review again, Bleeding from a tooth socket in the mouth, Discharge home with advice to return if worse, Pain travelling along the nerve that supplies both, Continue with liquids only for a full two weeks, Pain that will continue at this level for a full month, Arrange a review in the clinic next week, An infected clot in the jugular vein of the neck, Infection of the joints of the upper neck bones.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• A bulging palate with a shifted uvula means pus.
• Trismus points to spread beyond the tonsil itself.
• The pus is aspirated; antibiotics alone rarely suffice.
• A muffled voice comes from above the voice box.
• A child who cannot cooperate is drained asleep.
• A tonsil that grows alone is removed and examined.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all ENT and ophthalmology case decks · pediatric reference values.