ABSTRACT
Objective:To identify the pathogens isolated in the subperiosteal abscesses from the pediatric patients with acute osteomyelitis and to investigate the characteristics of bacterial drug resistance.Methods:A retrospective study was conducted on children with acute septic osteomyelitis who were hospitalized in the Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine from January 1, 2011 to March 1, 2018. The results of bacterial cultures isolated from the subperiosteal abscesses or bone marrow fluid were collected. The Merier automatic bacterial identification system (i.e., Vitek) was used to identify the bacteria and to assess the drug sensitivity.Results:(1) A total of 104 pediatric patients were included and 60 (57.7%) were male. Sixty-six strains of pathogens were isolated from 65 patients (62.5%). Among them, 53 strains (51.0%) were Staphylococcus aureus; 3 strains were Escherichia coli; 2 strains (1.9%) were Pseudomonas aeruginosa; 2 strains (1.9%) were Streptococcus pneumoniae, 2 strains (1.9%) were Ochrobactrum anthropi, and 4 strains (3.8%) were other bacteria. Pathogens were not found in 39 patients (37.5%). (2) Staphylococcus aureus accounted for 81.5% (53/65) of the pathogen-positive cases. Among them, 23 strains (43.4%) were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Aureus-positive children were statistically significantly older ( P=0.028), heavier ( P=0.040) and had higher C-reactive protein (CRP) level ( P=0.038) than the aureus-negative children. (3) All the 53 Staphylococcus aureus strains were resistant to penicillin and 56.6% of them were only sensitive to benzocillin. The resistance rates to compound sulfamethoxazole, tetracycline, clindamycin and erythromycin were 11.3%, 30.2%, 67.9% and 69.8%, respectively. The sensitivity rate of the strains to furantoin was 90.2%. All strains were sensitive to quinupristin/dalfopristin, linezolid, rifampicin, tigecycline, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, ciprofloxacin and vancomycin. There was 69.8% of the strains resistant to three or more different types of antibiotics. Conclusions:Staphylococcus aureus is the most common pathogen that causes the acute septic osteomyelitis in children, and the resistance rate to Benzocillin is relatively high. Therefore, Benzocillin and Clindamycin, as the traditionally-used drugs, should not be considered as the first choice when empirically using intravenous antibiotics. In the present study, pathogens in 39 patients (37.5%) were not detected in their subperiosteal abscesses or bone marrow fluid, so further effort should be made to investigate the etiology of these patients.