Abstract
We selected 157 cases (male cases were 39 and female cases were 118) of pustulosis palmoris et plantaris (PPP) where smokers or non-smokers were clear, treated with bilateral tonsillectomy at our department between January 1985 and December 1995. They were followed-up for more than 6 months after operation. The efficacy of tonsillectomy for improving the skin lesion was scored as 10 points before operation, mainly based upon individual evaluation by each patient. 118 cases (75.2 %) of those 157 tonsillectomy cases have had smoking habits (84.6% of male cases, 72.0% of female cases). These smoking rate in cases with PPP are higher than the general smoking rate in Japan. In female cases, nonsmoker group (0.81 score after operation) improved the skin lesion after operation in higher rate than in smokers group (2.00) (P < 0.01) and also post tonsillectomy improvement of skin lesion in non-smokers group after operation (0.96) was higher than in smokers group with habits of more than 10 pieces of tobacco per day (2.14) (P <0.05), but not in male.These results suggest that smoking may be affecting the efficacy of tonsillectomized cases in female with PPP.
