Thang điểm centor cải tiến trong chẩn đoán liên cầu nhóm A ở trẻ viêm họng cấp tại Cần Thơ

Abstract

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) accounts for approximately 15 - 30% of acute pharyngitis cases in children aged 1 - 15 years old, potentially leading to serious complications such as rheumatic heart disease, acute rheumatic fever, and post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis. The Modified Centor Score serves as a clinical predictive tool to estimate the probability of GAS infection, thereby supporting rational antibiotic use and mitigating antimicrobial resistance. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of the Modified Centor Score for GAS infection among 170 children with acute pharyngitis in Can Tho and to describe the association between clinical features and GAS prevalence. The prevalence of GAS-positive throat cultures was 12.9%. Clinical symptoms including fever > 38°C (48.2%) and tonsillar swelling or exudates (26.5%) were significantly associated with positive culture results (p < 0.05). Conversely, gender (55.3% female), tender anterior cervical lymphadenopathy (27.1%), and symptoms of cough or rhinorrhea (45.9%) showed no statistically significant correlation (p > 0.05). The Modified Centor Score demonstrated moderate-to-good discriminative ability for GAS infection with an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.774. At a cutoff point of ≥ 3, the score achieved a sensitivity of 77.3% and a specificity of 73.0%.