[Bacteriological examination of bronchitis and pneumonia. Part II: quantitative analysis of homogenized sputum with respect to leucocytes, protein, erythrocytes and bacteria (author's transl)]

Abstract

This study is concerned with the value of bacteriological sputum examination by lower respiratory tract infections. Prominence was given to quantitative aspects; colony forming units and markers of infection as leucocytes, albumin and erythrocytes were determined from homogenized specimens. It turned out that numbers exceeding 10(6) per ml of pathogenic bacteria correlated in more than 90% with clinical evidence of bronchitis or pneumonia if cases with antibiotic treatment are not taken into account. There is, in addition to that, more than 90% correlation between the number of colony forming units of these sizes and a leucocyte count of more than 20 per 125 magnification field, which is significant of infection. The markers of infection mentioned above, can be determined by a simple semi-quantitative test-stick method. It was possible to show good relation between the number of leucocytes counted by microscope and the "Cyturtest". Compared to the "routine method" especially pneumococcus and H. influenzae could be isolated much more frequently by applying the method of homogenizing sputum. The rough quantitative informations of the "routine method" did hardly coincide with the exactly determined bacterial numbers.