The Common Cold in Patients with a History of Recurrent Sinusitis Increased Symptoms and Radiologic Sinusitislike Findings

Conclusions

Patients with a history of recurrent sinusitis have more severe symptoms and have radiologic sinusitislike changes more often during common colds than patients with no history of sinusitis. This may result in overdiagnoses of bacterial sinusitis for patients with an earlier history of sinusitis. A pathogen-positive nasopharyngeal culture has been shown sensitive for bacterial sinusitis. Therefore, a strategy of culturing nasopharyngeal secretions of the patients suspected of having bacterial sinusitis and treating only the patients who have pathogenic bacteria in their nasopharynx would help physicians avoid unnecessary prescriptions of antimicrobials. We recommend such a strategy for sinusitis-prone patients