Pediatric Reports (Jan 2012)

Current role of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus among children with skin and soft tissue infections

  • Carlos G. Teran,
  • Sunitha Sura,
  • Tarek Mohamed,
  • Thant Lin,
  • Marsha Medows,
  • Donkor Cynthia,
  • Sze H. Wong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4081/pr.2012.e5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
pp. e5 – e5

Abstract

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Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has become a wellestablished pathogen with alarming rates during the last decade. The current situation of this bacteria in pediatric infections is very limited and motivated us to conduct this study. This is a retrospective and analytical study including patients less than 18 years of age with the diagnosis of skin or soft tissue infections in 2008 and 2009 meeting the criteria of Community-acquired infection. A prevalence of 41.9% among skin and soft tissue infections was found. Inducible resistance to clindamycin was detected in 1.3% of the strains and the infection shows a seasonal predilection for summer (P=0.003); 57.8% of the cases required hospitalization with a mean stay of 3.3±2.5 days. The susceptibility to clindamycin and co-trimoxazole is 88 and 97% respectively. The resistance to erythromycin has reached 92%. The main diagnoses at presentation was gluteal abscess plus cellulitis (34.2%). The prevalence of CA-MRSA is trending up and seems to become a large burden for the health system in our community. Clindamycin is still an excellent option in the community setting since inducible clindamycin resistance is extremely low in this community. Co-trimoxazole should be kept as a reserved drug to avoid the rapid resurgence resistance in the community.

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