Short-course treatment for acute tonsillopharyngitis

Acute tonsillopharyngitis (ATP) is one of the most common infections in community setting. The main reasons for antibiotic therapy are to shorten the subjective symptoms, to prevent local suppurative complications, to prevent possible distant non-suppurative complications and to reduce the spread of Streptococcus pyogenes in the environment. Tolerance of the microorganisms and inactivation of penicillin by beta-lactamase producing bacteria resident in the upper respiratory tract have been suggested to be some of the possible contributory causes of bacteriological failures, but the role of a poor compliance are being recently emphasised.