Unilateral Tonsillar Enlargement: A Challenge To The Traditional Thinking

A case of unilateral tonsillar enlargement as a benign hyperplastic reaction to a Hodgkin's lymphoma at level II in the ipsilateral cervical lymph nodes is reported. In the traditional teaching of head and neck surgery, unilateral tonsillar hypertrophy is presumed to be neoplastic until proven otherwise. This case demonstrated that the absence of neoplasia in an enlarged tonsil does not exclude the possibility of a local-regional tumor, and therefore further investigation may be required to exclude this possibility.