title: A simple scorecard for the tentative diagnosis of streptococcal pharyngitis.
abstract: More than 20,000 acute respiratory illnesses of children were studied by physicians in private practice to derive a nine-factor scorecard designed to estimate the probability that a given child's respiratory illness is caused by beta-hemolytic streptococci. Each factor was assigned a weight on the basis of the percentage of positive cultures from patients exhibiting that factor. The sum of these individual scores gave the total score. The higher a patient's score, the more probable was a streptococcal infection. Thus, depending on the score, a reasonably accurate prediction of the probability of a streptococcal infection can be made. The accuracy of such predictions compared favorably with that of skilled physicians.
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records; D010612:Pharyngitis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013290:Streptococcal Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D013291:Streptococcus / Q000302:isolation & purification