Antibiotic Susceptibility of Streptococcus Pyogenes Strains Isolated From Throat Cultures of Children With Tonsillopharyngitis

Streptococcus pyogenes is the most important causative agent of tonsillopharyngitis. Although penicillin is drug of choice, and macrolide antibiotics are recommendeddrugs in patients who have penicillin allergy, various antibiotics other than penicillin and macrolide antibiotics are also used in the treatment of streptococcaltonsillopharyngitis. In addition, resistance to macrolide antibiotics is an important problem in some regions ofthe world. For these reasons, we designed a study to determine the antibiotic susceptibility of S. pyogenes strains isolated from children with tonsillopharyngitis.Two hundred and sixty three S. pyogenes strains were examined for penicillin, ampicillin, cefazolin,cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, erythromycin, clarithromycin and azithromycin, clindamycin, ofloxacin, andvancomycin susceptibility. Tolerance against penicillin was also investigated. All S. pyogenes strains were determined to be susceptible to penicillin, ampicillin, cefazolin, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, ofloxacin, andvancomycin. Resistance to erythromycin, clarithromycin,azithromycin, and clindamycin were detected as 3.8%, 4.2%, 4.2%, and 3.0%, respectively. Penicillin tolerance wasn’t determined. These data indicate that antibiotic resistance of S. pyogenes strains is not a clinically significant problem in Turkey.