Epidemiologic markers of pediatric infections caused by coagulase-negative staphylococci.

Several epidemiologic markers (species, slime production and antimicrobial susceptibility) were examined for 256 isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci (C-S) obtained from clinical specimens in a 1-year period. The medical records of the 169 pediatric patients from whom the C-S were obtained were reviewed and divided into infected (N = 11) and uninfected (N = 158) groups. The phenotypic traits of strains associated with infection included: (1) slime production (P = 0.014); (2) slime-positive Staphylococcus epidermidis (P = 0.002); and (3) resistance to penicillin (P = 0.03), oxacillin (P less than 0.001), clindamycin (P = 0.003), chloramphenicol (P less than 0.001) and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (P less than 0.001). Infected patients were significantly older (P = 0.006) than uninfected patients. Simultaneous isolation of the same strain of C-S from the aerobic and anaerobic bottles of a single blood culture increased the probability of sepsis (P = 0.004). The combination of these patient and laboratory data may be useful in determining the clinical significance of C-S recovered from pediatric patients.