OROPHARYNGEAL FLORA - EPIDEMIOLOGIC SURVE Y OF PREVALENCE

Objectives: Epidemiological surveys which are not frequently carried o ut in medical practice should provide useful information for the choic e of antibiotics to be prescribed in community-acquired infections par ticularly with the recent development of therapeutic difficulties due to resistant strains. We therefore analyzed the prevalent pharyngeal f lora in a general patient population. Methods: The study was conducted during a single 24-hour period in 1991 by 43 general practitioners an d included 645 subjects consulting for benign affections, No patient s election was made. Two pharyngeal swabs were obtained from each subjec t and cultured in aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Internationally ac cepted methods for identifying bacteria in pharyngeal samples all perf ormed by one well equipped laboratory. Beta-lactamase activity was det ermined with the nitrocephine technique, both directly and after cultu re. Results: Patient age varied from 16 to 45 years; most (68.5%) cons ulted for reasons other than ear-nose-throat affections. Only 41 patie nts (4.3%) consulted for sore throat and 65.4% had not received antibi otics for a least 6 months. Haemophilus influenzae was found in 59.6% of the patients, 20% of the strains were betalactamase producers as we re 83.7% of the Moraxella catarrhalis strains identified. Conclusion: These factors are indicators of potential risk of therapeutic failure when using beta-lactams unstable to beta-lactamases for the treatment of pharyngeal infections.