Microbiology of the middle meatus: a comparison between normal adults and children.

Middle meatal samples were obtained from 52 carefully selected healthy adults. In 75 percent of the test subjects bacterial organisms were cultured. However, growth was often poor and the predominant species suggest a commensal flora: coagulase-negative staphylococci were retrieved from 35 percent, Corynebacterium sp. from 23 percent and Staphylococcus aureus from eigt percent of the adults.
These data are very different from those previously obtained among children where - even in the absence of obvious ENT pathology - the most frequently cultured organisms were typical sinusitis pathogens: Haemophilus influenzae present in 40 percent, Moraxella catarrhalis in 34 percent and Streptococcus pnuemoniae in 50 per cent of children. Furthermore, Streptococcus viridans and Neisseria sp., both organisms that might be able to inhibit colonization by some of the pathogens and found commonly among children, are virtually absent in helathy adults.