Abstract

We aimed to investigate the effect of inhaler budesonide spray that was used for one month to treat asthma on nasal and oropharyngeal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus. Fourty two asthma patients (32 female, 10 male) and 42 healthy control groups (33 female, 9 male) were accepted for this study. Oropharyngeal cultures were obtained from asthmatics admitted to the outpatient clinic of chest disease, before and after one-month 800µg/day inhaler budesonide therapy, evaluated for nasal and oropharyngeal carriage for S. aureus and compared with one single culture that was obtained from healthy controls. Three nasal and four oropharyngeal cultures were found to be positive for S. aureus in pretreatment cultures, and 4 nasal and 4 oropharyngeal cultures were positive after treatment. Five nasal and two oropharyngeal cultures were positive for S. aureus in control group. There was no difference in nasal and oropharyngeal S. aureus colonization in asthmatics before treatment compared to controls, and after treatment compared to pretreatment values (p>0.05). There was no relationship between nasal and oropharyngeal colonization of S. aureus and gender, age, smoking, presence of atopy, and the degree of the illness in three groups (p>0.05). We thought that the orally used inhaler steroid, budesonide which was administered to treat asthmatic do not affect the colonization of S. aureus in the nose and oropharynx.