Nearly 70 per cent of contemporary ENT consultants perform adenoidectomy as a routine when removing the tonsils. It has been stated in the literature that adenoid and tonsillar hypertrophy tend to co-exist and so a study was set up to investigate this hypothesis, with the possibility that it may be of diagnostic importance. A series of 45 children admitted for the operations of tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy was investigated. No correlation was found between adenoid weight and tonsil weight. In view of this, it was concluded that tonsil and adenoid hypertrophy do not necessarily co-exist and that tonsil size cannot be used to predict adenoid size.