The mycotic flora of adenoids and antibodies to Candida albicans in children.

We cultured the adenoid tissues of 72 children with recurrent respiratory infections for fungal organisms. We also took fungal cultures of nasopharyngeal secretions from 20 healthy children and 13 healthy adults as controls. Culture for fungi were positive in 15% of the patients, in 15% of the healthy adults and in 25% of the healthy children. Candida albicans, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis and Aspergillus sp. were the most common organisms found. In studying the children with recurrent respiratory infections, we were unable to find any significant correlation between the positive cultures and the age, type of day-care and previous antibiotic therapy given. We then studied the hemagglutination titers against C. albicans in 44 patients. This titer was 1:160 or lower in all but three patients, and was 1:320 in these latter three patients. However, fungal cultures were negative in all patients having hemagglutination titers of 1:80 or more.