Study: Alarming increase in pediatric MRSA

ATLANTA, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- There is a nationwide increase in the prevalence of pediatric methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus head and neck infections, U.S. researchers said.

The study, published in the Archives of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, shows from January 2001 to December 2006 there was a 16.3 percent increase in the percentage of resistance for all pediatric head and neck S. aureus infections.

Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta studied data on 21,009 pediatric head and neck S. aureus infections at 300 hospitals.

In 2001, approximately 12 percent of all isolated S. aureus in the study was methicillin resistant. During the following five years, the number steadily rose to more than 28 percent.

"There is a nationwide increase in the prevalence of MRSA in children with head and neck infections that is alarming," Dr. Steven E. Sobol of Emory University School of Medicine said in a statement.

"Clinicians must use antibiotic agents judiciously in order to reduce further antimicrobial drug resistance."

MRSA was once a condition that was only found in hospital settings; however, in the last decade MRSA outbreaks have increasingly been found in patients without risk factors.