[The role of Toxoplasma gondii in the etiology of chronic tonsillitis in children].

Toxoplasma gondii is know to have an affinity to lymphatic tissue. The authors studied whether after infection of the child's body T. gondii does or does not determine the chronic course of tonsillitis. In 712 children with chronic tonsillitis serological examinations for toxoplasmosis were carried out by means of RVK, NIR and ELISA. Low titers of toxoplasme antibodies were found in 8.0% of the children examined. In light of the following findings the authors conclude that toxoplasme tonsillitis did not occur in their series: toxoplasma antibodies failed to be increased; their titers in seropositive children were low; toxoplasma was not isolated from tonsillar tissue; no direct microscopic evidence of the parasite could be established in smears of cell aspirate from lymph nodes regional to the palatine tonsils; the same smears failed to present the cytopathologic picture characteristic of nodal toxoplasmosis. In our ecologic conditions T. gondii is presumably not involved in the etiology of chronic tonsillitis, or it may be involved but to an epidemiologically not appreciable extent. (Tab. 10, Ref. 18).