Abstract
Background: Diagnosing GABHS (Group A-beta Hemolytic Streptococcus) tonsillopharyngitis by clinical scoring is a recommended approach in developed countries, but there is still much controversy for low resource settings.
Aim: We aimed to assess the impact of Centor criteria with the support of practical laboratory tests.
Methods: We prospectively included patients complaining sore throat (N = 282). We evaluated them in terms of Centor scoring and performed white blood cell count (WBC), C-reactive protein (CRP), rapid antigen detecting test, and throat culture.
Results: In GABHS cases (n = 32, 11·3%), two of the criteria were observed to be positive in more than half of the cases (n = 19, 59·3%), while 13 (40·7%) cases met three/four criteria. The specificity of having two criteria was found to be 65·5% and increased to 91·5% after including CRP and WBC.
Conclusion: Centor criteria could be safely used to reduce unnecessary antibiotic usage for tonsillopharyngitis in developing countries.
This work was supported by Uludağ University Scientific Research Projects Found. This manuscript was polished and got ready for submission by SPI (job no. 20110729221156).