The aim of this study was to determine the effects of tobacco smoking on the nasal bacterial flora.

This study included 145 smokers and 114 non-smokers subjects. The study group 113 subjects of cigarette smokers were male and 32 were female. In non-smoker group, there were 54 male and 60 female subjects. The skin of the vestibulum nasi was cleaned with a 0.5% chlorehexidine alcohol solution. Additional contamination was avoided by using a sterile speculum to by-pass the vestibulum nasi. Sterile cotton swabs were used. For what all swabs were taken using a Killian nasal speculum for visualization, and then from the nasal of both vestibules. All of the samples were brought to the microbiology laboratory within half an hour.

In our study, 518 nasal cultures of 256 subject that smoke cigarette or do not were evaluated. 465 aerobe bacteria were isolated from bilateral nasal cavity swab of cigarette smoking and 406 from nonsmokers group. Bacterial growth was not detected in 10.3% of smoker groups and 7.9% of non-smokers group’s nasal cavity cultures. Each of two groups, the most isolated aerobe bacteria were coagulase negative staphylococci. When the comparison was made between microorganisms isolated from nasal flora of smoking and non-smoking groups we found statistically significant difference except Coagulase negative staphylococcus (p<0.05).

Smoking cigarette has impact on nasal flora and the ratio of microorganisms in the nasal flora may be different by smoking.