History of tonsillectomy and appendectomy in Hodgkin's disease.

The study comprised all 113 clinically and histologically confirmed cases of Hodgkin's disease aged 15-39 years who were treated at the Department of Hematology of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade from January, 1 to June, 30, 1987. For each patient, two individually matched controls were selected. Neighbourhood controls were the first neighbours of the same sex, age, and residence history. Hospital controls consisted of accidentally injured individuals, and they were matched in terms of sex, age, place of residence, and educational level. Comparison of cases and controls revealed that removal of the lymphoid tissue (either tonsils or appendix) did not affect the risk of developing Hodgkin's disease in any way. An association found by some previous studies has been explained by the confounding effect of socioeconomic status.