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Nevio Cimolai, MD, FRCPC
Vancouver, British Columbia

Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1993;119(9):1043-1044.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

A potential role for Chlamydia species and Mycoplasma species in recurrent tonsillitis seems intriguing and has prompted Charnock et al¹ to examine these possible associations with the use of varied laboratory methods. Although they suggest that such disease associations do not exist, these conclusions need to be tempered by the limitations of the microbial detection methods they describe.

For Mycoplasma pneumoniae, the use of the first generation of genetic probes is hindered by the limited sensitivity of the assay (approximately 10³ to 10⁵ colony-forming units). Such limitation, for example, had detracted from the use of such an assay on throat swabs from acutely infected patients.² Furthermore, the limitation of culture to 6 days of incubation is excessively brief. Some M pneumoniae cultures may not be positive for weeks.³ Therefore, both methods lead to a significant bias toward the detection of larger numbers of the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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