Recovery of potential pathogens in the nasopharynx of healthy and otitis media-prone children and their smoking and nonsmoking parents.

OBJECTIVES: Exposure to smoking is associated with colonization with pathogenic bacteria. This study investigated the frequency of isolation of potential pathogens in the nasopharynx of healthy and otitis media-prone (OMP) children and their smoking or nonsmoking parents.
METHODS: Posterior nasopharynx cultures were taken from 40 healthy and 40 OMP children and one of their parents. Twenty parents in each group were smokers. Potential pathogenic organisms were identified.
RESULTS: In the healthy children whose parents smoked, 15 potential pathogens were isolated from the parents and 13 were recovered from their children. Among the healthy children whose parents were nonsmokers, 3 potential pathogens were isolated from 2 parents (p < 0.005, compared to the parents and children in the smoking group) and 7 were recovered from their children. In the OMP children whose parents smoked, 16 potential pathogens were isolated from the parents and 19 were found in their children. Among the OMP children with nonsmoking parents, 3 potential pathogens were isolated from the parents (p < 0.001, compared to the parents and children in the OMP smoking group and the healthy children in the nonsmoking parents group) and 17 were recovered from their children.
CONCLUSIONS: Parents who smoke are more often colonized with pathogens than those who do not smoke. The nasopharynx of healthy children of smokers harbors a high number of pathogens that are similar to the flora found in their parents and OMP children. Pathogenic organisms were found more often in OMP children of both smoking and nonsmoking parents, as compared to healthy children whose parents were nonsmokers. Concordance with pathogens in the parent was high among the OMP children of smoking parents, but this was not observed in the OMP children of nonsmokers.