Kartagener's syndrome: clinical symptoms and laboratory studies.

The purpose of this study was to develop a research program for the detection of congenital malfunction of cilia in the respiratory tract of selected patients with chronic respiratory infection. A clear difference was found between patients with Kartagener's syndrome and patients with respiratory tract infections of unknown etiology by studying patients employing this program, including examination of mucociliary clearance, ciliary motility and ciliary ultrastructure. The name "primary ciliary dyskinesia" is appropriate for emcompassing several ciliary abnormalities.