The diagnostic test of swabbing the surface of the tonsil as a culture specimen for the determination of the organism responsible for the tonsil infection is still in practice, despite controversy. To date there has been no reports of establishing the reliability and validity of this common diagnostic test by appropriate statistical test of Likelihood ratios taking into consideration the specificity and sensitivity.
Department of ENT Speech & Hearing, Microbiology, Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, Tamilnadu, India. kurien_mary@hotmail.com