Recurrent Tonsillitis: The Role of Chlamydia and Mycoplasma

Abstract

To the Editor. —I recently had the opportunity to read the article in theArchivesby Charnock et al 1 on the role of Chlamydia and Mycoplasma in recurrent tonsillitis. Unfortunately, it has some serious scientific and methodologic problems. The most serious problem is that the authors picked the wrong chlamydial species. It is now well accepted that Chlamydia trachomatis does not cause any respiratory disease beyond infancy. The study by Komaroff et al 2 cited by the authors was a serologic study; no cultures were done. In retrospect, the seroconversions they observed were probably due to cross-reactions with the newly described third chlamydial species, Chlamydia pneumoniae . Actually, to my knowledge, there are no studies of pharyngitis or pneumonia in adults that have ever isolated C trachomatis from any respiratory site, and that includes the study by Gerber et al 3 that Charnock and colleagures cite as supportive data. It