PEDIATRICS Vol. 33 No. 1 January 1964, pp. 5-10
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GROUP A STREPTOCOCCAL INFECTIONS IN A CHILDREN'S HOME

I. Evaluation of Practical Bacteriologic Methods

Hugh L. Moffet M.D.1, Henry G. Cramblett M.D.1, and Joyce P. Black B.S.1

1 Department of Pediatrics, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

School-age children living in a children's home had pharyngeal cultures made on 485 consecutive infirmary admissions during a period of 14 months by inoculating the throat swab on the surface of a sheep blood agar plate. ASO titers were determined for the acute and convalescent phases of 95% of the 321 untreated illnesses associated with negative cultures. A rise in ASO titer occurred in 3.6% of these illnesses.

ASO titers were also determined on pairs of sera for 51 of 53 untreated febrile illnesses associated with negative streptococcal cultures in 1962 and a rise in ASO titer occurred for only one of these illnesses (2%).

This simple method for pharyngeal cultures is adequate and accurate as a laboratory aid to the practicing physician for the diagnosis of streptococcal pharyngitis in normal children. Bacitracin sensitivity showed an excellent correlation with Group A streptococci. Studies of duplicate swabs indicated that overnight storage of a dry swab at room or refrigerator temperature was associated with the recovery of more than 10 colonies of hemolytic streptococci from 80% to 88% of the swabs whose duplicates had more than 50 colonies.

Submitted on April 29, 1963
Accepted on June 25, 1963