1 Department of Pediatrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
To the Editor.
I read with interest the study by Arruda et al1 concerning the recovery of organisms from maxillary sinuses. The authors were able to isolate bacteria from 6 (29%) of the 21 patients with normal maxillary sinus radiographs. These findings support our earlier observation in which we recovered aerobic and anaerobic bacteria in uninfected maxillary sinuses.2 The colonization of the sinus cavity with oral flora may explain the chain of events that lead to infection.