Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
An etiologic study of acute pharyngitistonsillitis in over 300 Universty of Wisconsin students hospitalized with the illness revealed that 26.3% of the cases were associated with hemolytic streptococci, 37.8% were associated with viruses, and 35.9% were of unknown cause. Herpes simplex was the viral agent most frequently implicated, accounting for 12.9% of the total. Other viruses involved were: adenovirus, 2.7%; Coxsackie, 3.9%; influenza, 5.2%; parainfluenza, 3.7%; combination of two viruses, 2.3%; and unidentified picornaviruses, 7.1%. Clinical analysis of illness associated with different etiologic entities, including the hemolytic streptococcus, did not reveal differences that could serve as reliable bases for differential diagnosis in individual patents.
Evans et al. (1964) studied this question.