Haq Syed Nadeem Ul, Ayub Zeeshan, Ahmed Azeema
Department of ENT, Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Lahore.
Department of ENT, PAF Hospital, Mianwali.
J Coll Physicians Surg Pak. 2017 Jan;27(1):23-25.
To determine the best method of identifying core tonsillar flora.
Quasi-experimental study.
ENT Department, Combined Military Hospital, Lahore, from September 2013 to October 2015.
Eighty-seven patients of recurrent tonsillitis undergoing tonsillectomy were included. All the patients, after being anaesthetised, had surface swabs taken from the tonsillar surface followed by tonsillar aspiration with a 5cc syringe. Following tonsillectomy, the tonsils were sent for culture of core flora. All three specimens from each patient were cultured according to established criteria.
The patient population had 33 (37%) female and 54 (62%) male patients. Flora of 12 (13.8%) surface swabs and 68 (78.2%) tonsillar aspirates matched the flora cultured from core of the tonsils. Chi-square test showed this difference to be significant (p-value <0.001).
Tonsillar aspiration gave a much more realistic picture of the tonsillar core flora as compared to surface swabs.
