Do isolates from pharyngeal and rectal swabs match blood culture bacterial pathogens in septic VLBW infants? A pilot, cross-sectional study.

ABSTRACT: Serial body site swabbing is used to monitor horizontal spread of aggressive bacterial species in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Since colonization/carriage is thought to precede systemic infection, one might expect to retrieve colonizing pathogens from blood cultures. This hypothesis, however, has not been fully investigated in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants that are at high sepsis' risk. The primary outcome was, in a population of VLBW infants with late-onset sepsis, the matching between blood culture results and pathogens isolated from rectal and nose/pharyngeal surveillance swabs in the preceding 2 weeks. The secondary outcomes were the site of swabbing and time interval from colonization to blood culture positivity. Out of 333 VLBW neonates, 80 (24%) were diagnosed wit

SUBMITTER: Capasso L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7886719 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature