The molecular epidemiology and clinical implication of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) sequence types in pediatric bacteremia: a restrospective observational study, 2016-2021

• Published in: BMC infectious diseases 2024-02, Vol.24 (1), p.259-259, Article 259
• Main Authors: Kim, Gahee, Lee, Sanghoon, Lee, Yonghee, Kim, Jung Hwa, Lee, Jina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anti-Bacterial Agents - pharmacology; Anti-Bacterial Agents - therapeutic use; Antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Bacteremia; Bacteremia - epidemiology; Care and treatment; Child; Children; Chromosomes; Clinical severity; Development and progression; Drug resistance; Endocarditis; Epidemiology; Genetic aspects; Genotype; Genotypes; Health aspects; Health care facilities; Hospitals; Humans; Identification and classification; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Methicillin; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus; Microbial Sensitivity Tests; MLST; Molecular Epidemiology; Mortality; MRSA; Multidrug resistance; Multilocus Sequence Typing; Multivariate analysis; Observational studies; Patients; Pediatrics; Public health; Retrospective Studies; Risk factors; ST1; ST5; ST72; Staphylococcal Infections - epidemiology; Staphylococcus aureus; Staphylococcus aureus infections; Staphylococcus infections
• ISSN: 1471-2334; 1471-2334
• DOI: 10.1186/s12879-023-08914-5

While there is a high burden of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections among pediatric patients, studies on the molecular epidemiology of MRSA infections in Korean children since the 2010s are lacking. This study aimed to investigate the molecular genotypes and clinical characteristics of MRSA isolates from children with MRSA bacteremia at Asan Medical Center Children's Hospital from 2016 to 2021. Clinical data were retrospectively reviewed, and the molecular types of MRSA were determined using multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and Staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) typing. The overall methicillin resistance rate of S. aureus bacteremia was 44.8% (77/172); 49.5% in the period 2016-2018 (period 1) and 37.3% in the period 2019-2021 (period 2) (P = 0.116). Community-acquired infections accounted for only 3.9% of cases. The predominant ST group was ST72 group (67.6%), followed by ST5 group (18.9%) and ST1 group (5.4%). The proportion of ST5 was significantly lower in period 2 compared to period 1 (P = 0.02). Compared to the ST5 and ST1 groups, the ST72 group exhibited lower overall antibiotic resistance and multidrug-resistant (MDR) rates (12.0% [6/50] in ST72 group vs. 100.0% [14/14] in ST5 group vs. 50.0% [2/4] in ST1 group; P