Parents of teenagers in New York may want to be alert for complaints of sore throat from their kids. Serious sore throats that require a trip to the doctor could be caused a type of infection that many doctors don’t test for. If this infection goes untreated, it could lead to serious illness or even be fatal.
Parents of teenagers in New York may want to be alert for complaints of sore throat from their kids. Serious sore throats that require a trip to the doctor could be caused a type of infection that many doctors don’t test for. If this infection goes untreated, it could lead to serious illness or even be fatal.
Doctors generally test patients who have a persistent sore throat for streptococcal (strep) infection. This is done by way of a throat culture. Strep throat can be treated with antibiotics, but if the tests are negative for strep, the treatment is usually just rest.
In some cases, a different infection called Fusobacterium necrophorum, or F-throat, is present. However, strep throat tests won’t catch it. If a doctor overlooks the possibility of F-throat and doesn’t do specific tests for it, the patient could develop a serious illness or even die.
In teenagers and young adults, F-throat is believed to be more common than strep throat. For one study, researchers determined the causes of sore throats in a group of university students and found that one-fifth of the students had F-throat. Only about one in 10 had strep throat.
F-throat can be treated with antibiotics, but it may require different antibiotics than strep throat. According to a medical columnist, one 17-year-old boy who was treated with antibiotics for strep actually had F-throat, but the antibiotics did not cure his condition and he later died as a result.
Misdiagnoses and failure to diagnose are similar occurrences that can cause many health problems for patients. Doctors are not expected to be perfect, but making a diagnostic mistake can be considered medical malpractice. When a doctor’s mistake harms a patient, that patient or their loved ones could be entitled to financial compensation.
