The number of pediatric head-and-neck infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus shot up at an “alarming” rate across the United States between 2001 and 2006.
Sixty percent of these methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) cases were community acquired rather than nosocomial, and nearly half were resistant to clindamycin—reversals of the patterns that these infections have shown until now.
Dr. Iman Naseri of the department of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery, at Emory University, Atlanta, and associates used a national microbiology database to assess trends in MRSA prevalence. It includes strain-specific antimicrobial drug resistance test results from laboratories serving more than 300 hospitals.
They reviewed reports on 21,009 patients aged 0–18 years (mean, 7 years) whose head and neck infections were cultured between 2001 and 2006. The cultures were taken from the oropharynx/neck (60%), nasal or sinus cavity (38%), and middle or external ear (2%).
Overall, 4,534 samples (22%) were infected with MRSA. In 2001, about 12% of S. aureus infections were methicillin resistant. This proportion rose steadily during the 5 years of the study to more than 28% (Arch. of Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg. 2009;135:14–6).
The highest rate of infection occurred in the otologic cultures, which also had the highest prevalence of clindamycin resistance of the three sites.