A Hospital-Based and Cross-Sectional Investigation on Clinical Characteristics of Pediatric Isolates in Beijing from 2015 to 2021.

INTRODUCTION

() is a major pathogen causing death in children. Few studies have evaluated the importance of in the identified bacteria in clinical work. This retrospective study aimed to reveal the rank of in determined bacteria isolated from children in Beijing, China, as well as the antimicrobial resistance of this pathogen.

METHODS

The number of specimen for bacterial culture and of bacterial species were cumulated and ranked based on the data of the two largest children's hospitals in Beijing from 2015 to 2021. The temporal change of culture, as well as the clinical data of isolates were collected and analyzed. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of antimicrobial agents were determined by BD Phoenix 100 automated system or Vitek 2 automated system for antimicrobial susceptibility testing. The breakpoints recommended by CLSI were adopted.

RESULTS

During the 7-year study period, a total of 45,631 bacterial isolates were cultured from 462,144 submitted specimens, in which was the third frequent agent following and , and accounting for 8.79% of the isolates (4011/45,631). In the 4011 isolates, 2239 and 997 ones were, respectively, isolated from sputum and bronchial lavage fluid. Most of strains were identified in winter (34.7%) and spring (26.1%), and were mainly isolated from patients under 5 years old (77.1%). Low susceptible rate (27.6%) of CSF isolates was determined to penicillin according to the parenteral meningitis breakpoints, while high susceptible rate (56.9%) of non-CSF isolates was obtained according to the parenteral non-meningitis breakpoints. The isolates showed low sensitivity to erythromycin and tetracycline (<5%). All isolates were susceptible to vancomycin and linezolid.

CONCLUSION

The present results demonstrated that was one of the most commonly detected bacteria in current pediatric clinical tests, especially in young children under 5 years old, which emphasized the importance of prevention. Penicillin could still be the first empiric choice to treat non-meningitis pneumococcal infections, while erythromycin should not be involved in the treatment.