Pharyngitis is an inflammatory disease of the throat, accompanied by tissue edema and pain when swallowing. The disease can be acute or chronic. Treatment for pharyngitis depends on the cause and includes systemic and local therapy.
Pharyngitis reasons
Factors that can cause disease include infectious and non-infectious forms.
- In 70% of cases, pharyngitis symptoms are caused by a viral infection. The most common pathogens are adenovirus, rhinovirus, coronavirus, enterovirus, influenza virus, parainfluenza. Pathology usually occurs in the cold season, when the incidence of ARVI increases.
- In 20% of patients, the disease is caused by bacteria – Haemophilus influenzae, moraxella, diphtheria, streptococci, gonococci, mycoplasma, chlamydia.
- Non-infectious causes of illness include allergic reactions, injury, foreign bodies in the throat, exposure to irritating gases, and radiation.
- A sore throat can be caused by smoking, hypothermia, and alcohol abuse.
- Chronic pharyngitis is caused by sinusitis, tonsillitis, dental caries, deviated nasal septum, adenoids, and other diseases of the nasopharynx.
- The chronic course of the disease can be caused by endocrine diseases, gastrointestinal tract pathology, tuberculosis, HIV infection.
The cause of the disease mainly determines the symptoms and treatment of pharyngitis.
Symptoms of pharyngitis
The inflammatory reaction of the pathogen to the mucous membrane of the throat causes the following symptoms of pharyngitis:
- Discomfort in the throat: pain, itching, pain, dryness, and burning;
- hoarseness, a feeling of congestion in the ears;
- Increased pain when swallowing, a feeling of something foreign in the throat.
Fever is not uncommon for pharyngitis. However, in severe cases, with a streptococcal form of the disease, as well as damage to other organs, the temperature may rise and the lymph nodes in the neck become enlarged.
If the illness is caused by a virus, it may be accompanied by other symptoms of a cold – runny nose, nasal congestion, red eyes, dry cough, or wheezing. Children often have diarrhea.
With the bacterial nature of the disease, symptoms of pharyngitis may include cough with light-colored sputum and, in acute cases, purulent sputum. In this case, the child has abdominal pain and loose stools.
Symptoms requiring emergency medical care:
- inability to swallow water and liquid food;
- difficult, noisy breathing through the mouth, suffocation, large amounts of saliva;
- Severe fever that does not respond to medication, especially in young children with epilepsy or dementia.
Types of pharyngitis
Acute pharyngitis is usually catarrhal. Purulent forms are less common.
Types of chronic pharyngitis:
- catarrhal, accompanied by long-term superficial inflammation and circulatory disorders, which leads to venous congestion and persistent swelling of the tissues;
- hypertrophic, in which all layers of the throat wall are thickened, as well as hypertrophy of lymphoid follicles;
- Atrophic pharyngitis with a decrease in the number of mucous glands, dryness, and increased damage to the walls of the throat.
Treatment of pharyngitis depends on its form: if antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory drugs are prescribed for the acute process, local therapy and physiotherapy methods aimed at restoring the normal tissues of the throat are more important in chronic cases.
