Community-associated Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia among Greek children: epidemiology, molecular characteristics, treatment, and outcome.

Staphylococcus aureus is an infrequent cause of community-associated (CA-SA) pneumonia in children. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical, epidemiological, microbiological, and molecular characteristics of CA-SA pneumonia among children hospitalized in two large tertiary care referral centers during an 8-year period. Cases of CA-SA pneumonia admitted between 2007 and 2014 were retrospectively examined through medical record review.

Clinical value of plasma soluble urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor levels in term neonates with infection or sepsis: a prospective study.

Background: suPAR, the soluble form of the urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor, has been identified as a biomarker of infection in adults but its properties in neonatal infection are not known.

Methods: Plasma suPAR levels were determined by ELISA in 47 term neonates with infection (19 bacterial and 28 viral) and in 18 healthy neonates as controls. Thirteen out of 47 infected neonates were septic.

Blood stream infections throught the entire course of acute lymphoblastic leukemia treatment.

The incidence, type and mortality of bacteremias were evaluated in a pediatric patient cohort, during the entire course of treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Eighty-six patients with newly diagnosed ALL were studied. A bacteremic episode was defined as blood isolation of a pathogen in the presence of clinical symptomatology of septicaemia.

Spread of the Streptococcus pneumoniae Taiwan19F-14 clone among children in Greece.

Serotype 19F pneumococci were a leading cause of infections among children in Athens, Greece during 2001-2006. In total, 143 19F isolates were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and 38 isolates representing the main PFGE types were also characterised by multilocus sequence typing. A diversity of distinct strains belonging to sequence types 236, 1035, 274, 172 and 319 were identified, but multidrug-resistant isolates related to the Taiwan(19F)-14 clone (ST236) constituted 76.