Study of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteremia in children

Abstract

From July 1999 to June 2004, we evaluated Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteremia in 40 children in Kamikawa and Soya Subprefectures in Hokkaido by obtaining the patient's information from 7 out of 9 hospitals in the area. The incidences of S. pneumoniae bacteremia in children aged < 2 years and < 5 years were 79.1 and 63.4. Median age was 19.6 months with a range from 4 months to 4 years. Thirty-one (77.5%) of the total were less than 2 years old. All of the children were admitted. The diagnoses were occult bacteremia in 12 patients, pneumonia or bronchitis in 11, pharyngitis in 7, pneumonia and acute otitis media in 5, acute otitis media in 3, orbital cellulitis in 1, and arthritis in 1. All of the patients had fever and temperatures and 35 (87.5%) of them were more than 39 degrees C. Ten patients had a febrile convulsion. Twenty-nine had a high total white blood cell counts (> 15,000/microg/ml) and 31 had positive CRP values (> 0.6 mg/dl) on admission. Meningitis and poor prognosis did not occur after occult bacteremia in our patients. We studied the susceptibility to penicillin G in 22 strains of S. pneumoniae isolated from the children. One and 18 strains were penicillin-resistant (MIC > or = 2.0 microg/ml) and intermediate (MIC 0.1-1.0 microg/ml).