Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal

Mycobacterium fortuitum is a rapidly growing nontuberculous mycobacterium mainly associated with skin, soft tissue and surgical site infections. We report an unusual outbreak of 6 cases of surgical site infection following spinal surgery. Patients received combined intravenous antibiotics, including amikacin, followed by an extended period of oral therapy with favorable clinical outcomes. No instrumentation replacement was performed in any case.

BACKGROUND: Classically, Lyme disease follows a staged illness pattern with carditis occurring in early disseminated disease and arthritis in late-stage disease. A more comprehensive understanding of Lyme suggests that clinical stages may intersect. Little is known regarding the overlap of electrocardiogram (ECG) abnormalities in children with Lyme arthritis. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of ECG changes in pediatric patients presenting with Lyme arthritis. METHODS: In this retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted at a tertiary care children's hospital in a Lyme endemic area; patients were identified based on Lyme testing performed from January 2012 to August 2022...

BACKGROUND: An ex-27-week gestation female infant developed bilateral forearm nodules at 4 weeks of life during treatment for methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia. A pure growth of Candida albicans was isolated on culture of both sterile aspiration of the forearm abscess and urine without evidence of methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus. The patient went on to develop bilateral obstructive renal fungal bezoars at 11 weeks of life. RESULTS: Bilateral nephrostomies were required to alleviate obstruction with the addition of local irrigation with amphotericin B deoxycholate...

BACKGROUND: To help understand the disease burden of vaccine-preventable bacterial disease, we delineated the epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of radiographic-confirmed community-acquired pneumonia (CXR-CAP) among Chinese children. METHODS: We retrospectively screened the electronic database of the hospital information system to identify all pediatric CAP cases admitted to the Children's Hospital of Soochow University between 2010 and 2014. Radiographic findings and clinical data were extracted from the medical charts through individual chart reviews...

From Malawi's HIV case surveillance, we report clinical characteristics and outcomes of 4461 children living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment aged <5 years from January to December, 2022. Among the 4% of children living with HIV who died, 43% were asymptomatic, 35% had advanced or severe symptoms at the time of HIV diagnosis and 50% died within 6 months of receiving an HIV diagnosis.

BACKGROUND: Measles is highly infectious, requiring ≥95% vaccine coverage rate (VCR) to prevent outbreaks. This study aimed to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine measles-containing vaccine (MCV) VCRs in Serbia and estimate national and regional catch-up vaccination required to prevent outbreaks. METHODS: A multiplier model was used to calculate annual MCV dose 1 (MCV1) and MCV dose 2 (MCV2) VCRs for children 1-6 and 6-12 years of age, respectively, for 2011-2022...

BACKGROUND: Although the Candida species continue to be the most frequent colonizer of neonatal skin, a clear increase of colonization due to rare yeast-like fungi has been reported. In this study, we report an unusual high prevalence of Cryptococcus diffluens colonization in neonates admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) over a 1-month period. METHODS: From January 2020 to June 2021, the study included all neonates who were admitted to the NICU of Bu Ali Sina Hospital at least 28 days old...

Congenital cytomegalovirus is a leading cause of neurodevelopmental impairment and sensorineural hearing loss. We evaluated infants ≤21 days postnatal age who had both urine and saliva cytomegalovirus testing and determined concordance between the 2 tests and influence of very low birth weight on concordance. Discordance was low overall between urine and saliva testing; however, discordance was high in very low birth weight infants.

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BACKGROUND: This study aims to compare the infections' risk between adolescents and young adults (AYAs), treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and pediatric population. We also focused on their bacterial and fungal infection specificities. METHODS: This case-control study investigated the occurrence of bacterial bloodstream infection (BSI) and proven and probable invasive fungal infection (IFI) in AYAs (15-25 years old) and children (1-14 years old) treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia between January 2013 and December 2020 in 2 French tertiary pediatric and 2 referral adult hematological centers, independent of their treatment protocol...

BACKGROUND: Cat-scratch disease is a common zoonosis in children. However, atypical clinical presentation of cat-scratch disease is less common, and lung involvement is particularly rare. The usual presentation of lung disease in bartonellosis includes other organ involvement and is more common in immunocompromised patients. CASE REPORT: We present a 10-year-old immunocompetent patient with pneumonia and inoculated empyema caused by Bartonella henselae, without any other organ involvement, which occurred 2 weeks after lymphadenopathy...

The genetic basis of neonatal COVID-19 infection, which exhibits a range of severity, has not been investigated. We identified both shared and unique genetic variants involved in antiviral immune responses through whole exome sequencing of an infant who developed severe COVID-19 pneumonia and multisystem inflammatory syndrome and the twin brother also positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2, but with only moderate respiratory symptoms.

Humoral immune responses after BNT162b2 vaccination are predominantly composed of immunoglobulin (Ig) G1 and IgG3 subclass antibodies. As previously described in adults, S1-specific and receptor-binding domain-specific IgG4 levels increase significantly 1 year after the second BNT162b2 vaccination in children 5-11 years of age. Understanding mRNA vaccine-specific IgG4 responses in all age groups is crucial as more mRNA vaccines will reach licensure in the coming years.

Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection is the most common congenital infection in developed countries. Although a standard therapy has not yet been established, evidence for the management of cCMV infection has been accumulating. The first edition of the "Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection" was published in Japan in 2023. This summary outlines the clinical questions (CQs) in the guidelines, with reference to the Japanese Medical Information Distribution Service Manual...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Using the Data Evaluation and Preparation for HIV-Exposed Uninfected Child Cohorts project's standardized child HIV exposure definitions, 64%, 64% and 90% of children exposed to HIV in utero could be classified as HIV-uninfected with moderate or high certainty at the ages of 1 and 3 years and at the time of first infectious disease hospitalization, respectively. These definitions can be applied retrospectively to routine datasets with linked mother-child data.

BACKGROUND: Associations between ganciclovir and severe nephrotoxicity are incompletely defined. Studies incorporating the time-varying nature of medication exposures and those that address confounding by indication are particularly scarce in children undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation. METHODS: We identified children undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation in the Pediatric Health Information System database and tracked them for 1 year following transplantation...