Survey of the streptococcal pharyngitis prevalence in over 15 year old adults having sore throat in Semnan Fatemieh hospital during 1999-2000

In troduction :Acute pharyngitis is an inflam a to ry syndrome in phary nx ca used by severa l various gro ups of microorganisms. Mos t infectio ns are viral among th e bacterial ca uses. "A" group streptococc us is the most important. Due to s imi la r ity of th e sympto ms a nd a lso the main comp lica t io ns of st re ptococcal pharyngitis, Knowing it's prevalence and the most common symptoms in thi s disease is importan t to treat the patien t. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive cross -sectional study ca rried out on 20U ove r 15-year-old adults having so re th ro at in Semnan Fatcmieh Hospital. A qu estionaire co nta ining symptoms a nd s ig ns of dise ase was comple ted for patients, then a cult ure from th ro at was performed for each o ne. Finally, prevalence of the streptococcal pharyngitis, sensitivity, characte ristics of symptoms were eva lua ted by descr iptive sta tistics. Results: 56 % o r pa t ie nts we re fema le and 44% ma le , age me an amo ng was 28.82 year old with s tandard deviation 12.39. In 7.5% of cult ures media, s tr e ptococc us "A" had been grown . Erythema (76.5%) was the most common symptom in group "A", and then odyno phagia, myalgia, fever and ex ud at e , res pe ctivel y. Totally, th es e thr e e sympto ms feve r , exu dat e a n d lymph adenopathy arc the main fea tures with 96.2% specifi city. Conclusion: In this study, the level of the positive cultures considering "A" group streptococcus in patients more than IS-year-old is nearly equivalent to the normal population. Results indicating, using antibiotics forover IS-year- old patients is useless except having exudate, fever and lymphadenopathy