Abstract
Introduction: Acute tonsillitis, defined as an
inflammation of the tonsils is a part of the spectrum
of sore throat. It is a common diagnosis of patients
in Ear, Nose, Throat out-patient department with a
sore throat. It equally affects both gender and all age
groups. There has been an alarming increase in the
use of antibiotics in acute tonsillitis. Thus our study
aims to establish the rational use of antibiotics in
acute tonsillitis by differentiating between bacterial
from tonsillitis due to other etiologies. Thus, we
have used the C-Reactive protein as a tool to support
the diagnosis of bacterial tonsillitis.
Materials and Methods: This is an observational
study conducted from January 2018 to January
2019 in the Department of ENT, Pokhara Academy
of Health Sciences. The objective of this study is
to establish the role of C-reactive protein for the
diagnosis of acute bacterial tonsillitis. Patients of
all age groups presented with sore throat and fever
and diagnosed with acute tonsillitis were enrolled
in the study . Complete blood count with throat
swab culture sensitivity and C- reactive protein
were sent and reports were studied. SPSS was used
to analyse the data. Association between variables
was examined using independent sample T-test, Chi
square test and binary logistic regression OR with
95% CI was reported.
Results: There were 35 patients ie. 37.2% labeled
as a bacterial group who had bacterial growth in
their throat swab culture examination and 59 ie
62.8% had no growth and labeled as a viral group.
Bacterial group showed significantly higher odds of
having positive CRP value compared to viral/nonbacterial group (OR: 3.737, 95% CI: 1.547 – 9.028,
p = 0.003).
Conclusion: C-reactive protein can be a diagnostic
tool for differentiating bacterial from viral tonsillitis.
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