Correlation of nasopharyngeal cultures prior to and at onset of acute otitis media with middle ear fluid cultures

Background We sought to determine if nasopharyngeal (NP) cultures taken at times of healthy visits or at onset of acute otitis media (AOM) could predict the otopathogen mix and antibiotic-susceptibility of middle ear isolates as determined by middle ear fluid (MEF) cultures obtained by tympanocentesis. Methods During a 7-year-prospective study of 619 children from Jun 2006-Aug 2013, NP cultures were obtained from 6-30 month olds at healthy visits and NP and MEF (by tympanocentesis) at onset of AOM episodes. Results 2601 NP and 530 MEF samples were collected. During healthy visits, S. pneumoniae ( Spn ) was isolated from 656 (31.7%) NP cultures compared to 253 (12.2%) for Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NT Hi ) and 723 (34.9%) for Moraxella catarrhalis ( Mcat ). At onset of AOM 256 (48.3%) of 530 NP samples were culture positive for Spn , 223 (42%) for NT Hi and 251 (47.4%) for Mcat , alone or in combinations. At 530 AOM visits, Spn was isolated from 152 (28.7%) of MEF compared to 196 (37.0%) for NT Hi and 104 (19.6%) for Mcat . NP cultures collected at onset of AOM but not when children were healthy had predictive value for epidemiologic antibiotic susceptibility pattern assessments. Conclusions NP cultures at onset of AOM more closely correlate with otopathogen mix than NP cultures at healthy visits using MEF culture as the gold standard, but the correlation was too low to allow NP cultures to be recommended as a substitute for MEF culture. For epidemiology purposes, antibiotic susceptibility of MEF isolates can be predicted by NP culture results when samples are collected at onset of AOM. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-014-0640-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.