ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Otorinolaringologia 1998 December;48(4):165-70

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Streptococcus pyogenes in a statistically homogeneous population. Incidence in throat swabs over a 12-year period (1983-1994)

Mesolella C., Morelli G., Mesolella M., Testa D., Testa G., De Paolis P.*, Catalanotti P.*

From the II Università degli Studi - Napoli Istituto di Clinica Otorinolaringoiatrica * Istituto di Microbiologia

Background. The aim of ­this ­study is to eval­u­ate the inci­dence of a ­group A ­beta-hem­o­lyt­ic strep­to­coc­cus in a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly homo­ge­ne­ous pop­u­la­tion.
Methods. From January 1983 to December 1994 a ­study was car­ried out on the oroph­a­ryn­geal bac­te­ri­al pop­u­la­tion of 13,234 indi­vid­u­als, ­aged 0-40 ­years res­i­dent in the ­city or prov­ince of Naples. The ­choice of ­this pop­u­la­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing, ­since ­this ­area has the high­est pop­u­la­tion den­sity in Italy, the high­est ­birth-­rate, ­infant mor­tal­ity ­rate, mar­riage ­rate and ­also the high­est rela­tion­ship ­between ­infant mor­tal­ity and gen­er­al mor­tal­ity.
Results. The ­results ­show a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant (p<0.001) increase in the iso­la­tion of ­group A ­beta-hemo­lyt­ic strep­to­coc­ci: 5.78% in the ­years 1987-1988; 5.95% in the ­years 1989-1990; 5.82% in the ­years 1991-1992; 6.63% in the ­years 1993-1994; com­pared to 1.2% in 1983-1984 and 1.74% in 1985-1986.
Conclusions. The ­increase in ­group A ­beta-haem­o­lyt­ic strep­to­coc­cal iso­la­tions in ­throat ­swabs ­observed in the ­last 8 ­years of our ­study war­rants care­ful sur­veil­lance and mon­i­tor­ing of ­group A strep­to­coc­cal dis­ease.