Short-course antibiotic treatment of bone and joint infections in children: a retrospective study at Montpellier University Hospital from 2009 to 2013.

BACKGROUND: Acute haematogenous bone and joint infections (AHBJI) represent a diagnostic and therapeutic emergency in children, with significant potential sequelae in the case of delayed treatment. Although historically the recommendations for treatment have been based on surgery and prolonged antibiotic therapy, recent studies have demonstrated that short-course antibiotic therapy is also effective. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated a short-term antibiotic protocol for both osteomyelitis and septic arthritis in a 6 year retrospective study at the University Hospital of Montpellier. METHODS: This protocol was based on an initial intravenous treatment with a re-evaluation after 48 h and an early switch to oral therapy in the case of a favourable clinical course for a minimum total duration of 15 days. Antibiotics were selected based on local microbiological epidemiology and systematically adapted to bacteriological results. RESULTS: One hundred and seventy-six cases of AHBJI were included, comprising 56 patients with osteomyelitis, 95 with septic arthritis and 25 who had both of these. The aetiological agent was identified in 42% of the cases, with the main pathogens being Staphylococcus aureus (39%) and Kingella kingae (27%). The mean intravenous treatment duration was 4 days, while the total treatment duration was 15 days. There were no treatment failures, mild sequelae occurred in 1% of the cases and the secondary surgical revision rate was 7%. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study are comparable to those reported for evaluations of prolonged antibiotic therapy protocols, thus indicating that a common short-term antimicrobial therapy for the management of both osteomyelitis and septic arthritis (minimum of 15 days) is a viable option for treating AHBJI in children. Further prospective studies to confirm these findings are hence warranted.

[Hypercalcemia revealing sarcoidosis in a child]. / Hypercalcémie révélant une sarcoïdose chez un enfant.

Sarcoidosis is a systemic granulomatosis disease with a classic triad of presentation: typical clinical and radiological signs, presence of tuberculoid granuloma without caseum in histopathology, and exclusion of other causes of granulomatosis, especially tuberculosis. Sarcoidosis is rare in the general population, and even more so in children. In the literature, few cases of sarcoidosis associated with hypercalcemia have been reported in children. We report here the case of a 14-year-old boy with bone marrow and lymph node sarcoidosis suspected, based on poor general condition with hypercalcemia. The patient was treated with hydration, diuretics, and bisphosphonates with good results. We also performed a literature review of published cases of hypercalcemia since 1990 with a diagnosis of sarcoidosis in children, comparing 23 cases (including ours) on clinical and epidemiological, biological, imaging, and histopathological diagnosis. When hypercalcemia is present in the initial clinical presentation, the diagnosis of sarcoidosis is usually made in younger children. Classical locations of the lesions, including lung, skin, and lymph nodes, were highly suggestive of sarcoidosis. Corticosteroids are commonly used to treat sarcoidosis lesions including hypercalcemia. In conclusion, sarcoidosis in children remains difficult to diagnose because the disease is rare and it is common to have nonspecific symptoms in the clinical picture (with diagnosis delayed between 3 months and several years). The classic triad is not always present. Sarcoidosis should be systematically considered and investigated in case of hypercalcemia of unknown cause in children.

[Congenital myotonic dystrophy type I in a very premature neonate: ethical concerns]. / Dystrophie myotonique de Steinert congénitale chez un grand prématuré : questionnements éthiques.

UNLABELLED: The congenital form of myotonic dystrophy type I (CDM1) corresponds to a>1500 expansion of an unstable trinucleotide (CTG) repeat. Two prognostic factors predict the risk of death in early infancy: maturity of less than 35 weeks of gestation and neonatal invasive ventilation for more than 30 days. OBSERVATION: The case of a 29-week-old premature female infant, conceived by in vitro fertilization, is reported. Generalized hypotonia led to the diagnosis of the disease. Ethical concertation about withdrawal or maintenance of intensive care was engaged, taking into account the prolonged ventilation, the degree of prematurity, and the parental wishes for maximum care. The infant was extubated after 2 months. At 17 months, motor development and precursors of language were delayed, and difficulties in feeding had required a gastrostomy. DISCUSSION: Technical advances in neonatal intensive care now allow CDM1 children to survive prolonged ventilation. The signification of such ventilatory needs on patient outcome, particularly for motor handicaps, speech and language delay, and mental deficiency, remains uncertain. The potential impact of in vitro fertilization on disease expression may also be considered. CONCLUSION: CDM1 is a severe condition, but variability in clinical manifestations and absence of genotype-phenotype correlation result in problems predicting prognosis at the individual level. Ethical issues about the level of care, notably for tracheostomy and gastrostomy, should be adapted to each case, in partnership with parents.

Group B streptococci in milk and late neonatal infections: an analysis of cases in the literature.

BACKGROUND: The source for late-onset neonatal infections (LONI) due to group B Streptococcus (GBS) has not been fully explored. We reviewed GBS LONI cases associated with contaminated breast milk to determine whether breast milk was a possible route for neonatal infection. DATA SOURCES: A PubMed search from January 1977 to March 2013 was performed with MeSH words "Streptococcus agalactiae", "group B Streptococcus", "infection", "milk", "human", "late-onset infection" and/or "neonate"; relevant cross references were also reviewed. RESULTS: Forty-eight documented cases of GBS LONI matched our search criteria and were retrieved from the literature. When performed, molecular typing identified clonal isolates in the neonate and milk samples taken after LONI in all cases, with the hypervirulent sequence type 17 (ST-17) clone identified in two of these cases. Caesarean delivery combined with the absence of GBS recovery from maternal samples other than milk was noted for four cases. The rate of recurrent infections was high (35%) and, together with the data reviewed, points to a potential role of breast milk in GBS LONI. CONCLUSIONS: The cases reviewed here, together with the evidence of breast milk transmission for other pathogens, suggest that breast milk, which would account for repeated GBS transmission to the neonate, may favour gut translocation and subsequent LONI. Further investigations are nevertheless needed to study the relative importance of this contamination route compared with persistent postnatal gut colonisation and the dynamics of milk and neonatal gut colonisation.

[Intravenous immunoglobulin-resistant Kawasaki disease with hemophagocytosis]. / Maladie de Kawasaki résistante aux immunoglobulines et compliquée de syndrome d'activation macrophagique.

Kawasaki disease is acute self-limited vasculitis of unknown etiology that mainly affects infants and young children. Many different clinical aspects can be encountered. A single dose of intravenous immunoglobulin and treatment by aspirin are the standard therapy. Cases of immunoglobulin therapy resistance pose a real problem. We report on the case of a 14-year-old boy with Kawasaki disease and hemophagocytic syndrome, resistant to the combination of two doses of immunoglobulins and three doses of corticosteroids. Recovery was obtained with one dose of infliximab. This observation highlights Kawasaki disease in adolescents and the therapeutic difficulties that may be encountered in cases of resistance to immunoglobulins. Association with macrophage activation syndrome is rare.

Utility of the Etest GRD for detecting Staphylococcus aureus with reduced susceptibility to glycopeptides in cystic fibrosis patients.

Glycopeptide-intermediate S. aureus (GISA), particularly heterogeneous GISA (hGISA), remain difficult to detect in the routine practice of medical microbiology. Novel tools have been evaluated comparatively to the population analysis profile-area under the curve (PAP-AUC) reference method for detecting GISA/hGISA. Among them, the Etest GRD showed relatively high specificity (85.8-97%) and negative predictive value (97%) but lower sensibility (57-95%) and positive predictive value (30.8%). We investigated the utility of the Etest GRD for detecting GISA/hGISA among 180 strains isolated from 106 cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Etest GRD was performed on all isolates, and those exhibiting a GISA/hGISA phenotype were further tested by PAP-AUC and other agar routine assays for GISA/hGISA detection. The Etest GRD allowed the detection of 15 GISA/hGISA strains, of which eight were confirmed by the reference method. Despite the 3.9% level of false positive results, the Etest GRD constitutes a useful routine tool for detecting GISA/hGISA overlooked by other routine assays, two strains being detected by the Etest GRD only. GISA/hGISA represented 7.7% of MRSA and 2.1% of MSSA, and were found in 4.7% of CF patients colonized/infected by S. aureus, which is the highest rate reported to date in this population.

[Multifocal inflammatory syndrome after invasive infection due to an M1 strain of Streptococcus pyogenes]. / Manifestations inflammatoires réactionnelles multifocales après infection invasive à Streptococcus pyogenes de type M1.

We report on a case of Streptococcus pyogenes invasive disease with toxic shock syndrome due to an M1 strain producing SpeA and SmeZ superantigenic toxins. Post-streptococcal sequelae included several episodes of reactive arthritis and orchitis whose outcome was favorable with corticosteroid therapy. Invasive streptococcal infections are increasingly reported and may associate septic, toxinic, and immunological diseases. High-grade systemic inflammation may induce nonsuppurative complications and autoimmune diseases by molecular mimicry. Among them, reactive arthritis has been recognized as a separate entity from acute rheumatic fever and post-streptococcal orchitis has not been described before. Treatment should be quickly started and should be effective on the etiologic agent but also on its toxins due to the severity of the invasive infections associated with the spread of highly virulent bacterial clones and the potential development of multifocal nonsuppurative sequelae.