THE USE OF RAPİD STREP A TEST FOR ACUTE TONSİLLOPHARYNGİTİS

¹Başkent Üniversitesi Hastanesi, Kulak Burun Boğaz, İzmir, Türkiye
²Başkent Üniversitesi Hastanesi, Enfeksiyon Hastalıkları ve Klinik Mikrobiyoloji , İzmir, Türkiye
³Başkent Üniversitesi Hastanesi, Çocuk Sağlığı ve Hastalıkları , İzmir, Türkiye Acut tonsillopharingitis is one of the most common diseases that are presented to the general practitioners and otorhinolarygologists. Etiologic agent is Group A Streptococcus in 5-30% of the patients.. The detection of the agent is useful for planning the proper treatment, preventing the complications, and also avoiding unnecessary antibiotic usage. Although the throat culture is a gold standart in diagnosing the tonsillopharyngitis, it takes 24-48 hours to obtain the result. There have been many antigen detection tests introduced for the last 20 years to quickly detect the agent of the infection. In our study, we prospectively evaluated the affectivity of one of these tests “rapid antigen detection test”. The throat culture and rapid antigen detection test results of ninety-two patients who had admitted with soar throat, fewer, dysphagia, tonsillopharyngeal hyperemia and painful cervical lyphadenitis were examined. The throat culture was negative in 81 patients (% 88.04), and positive in 11 patients (% 11.95). Seventy-nine of the culture negative patients (% 97.53) had also negative rapid antigen detection test result. Two patients (% 2.47) had positive rapid antigen detection test, although their culture result was negative. All the patients having the positive culture result for Group A streptococcus had also positive rapid antigen detection test. We conclude that, rapid antigen detection test is quick and reliable test to use in the diagnosis of Group A streptococcal tonsillopharyngitis. Keywords : boğaz kültürü