Long-term impact of serious neonatal bacterial infections on neurodevelopment

Epidemiology of sepsis in hospitalised neonates in Indonesia: high burden of multidrug-resistant infections reveals poor coverage provided by recommended antibiotic regimens

BACKGROUND

Neonatal sepsis is a leading cause of child mortality, and this burden is rising secondary to increasing antimicrobial resistance worldwide. There are marked global disparities in the burden of antimicrobial resistance, with Southeast Asia identified as a region of particular concern. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with 4.2 million babies born each year. Despite this, there remains limited published data on the burden of neonatal sepsis and antimicrobial resistance in the country.

METHODS

We conducted a 2-year analysis of the epidemiology of neonatal sepsis across three high-burden clinical settings in Indonesia, alongside an antibiotic point prevalence prescribing survey.

RESULTS

Of 5439 blood cultures analysed, gram-negative bacteria predominated as causative pathogens for neonatal sepsis in Indonesia, with Klebsiella spp and Acinetobacter spp most common (prevalence 35% and 19%, respectively). Overall, the pathogens causing neonatal sepsis exhibit very low susceptibility to WHO-recommended antibiotic regimens for the treatment of neonatal sepsis, with only 25% coverage provided by aminopenicillins plus gentamicin (95% credible interval (CI) 22% to 29%) and 20% by third-generation cephalosporins (95% CI 17% to 23%). Almost half of all antibiotics prescribed to treat neonatal sepsis across the clinical settings included in our study were Watch and Reserve antibiotics.

CONCLUSION

Our multicentre study across three sites in Indonesia revealed neonatal sepsis is predominantly caused by Gram-negative pathogens, with very poor coverage provided by currently recommended empiric regimens. A high burden of multidrug-resistant pathogens drives empirical use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. There is an urgent need for new antibiotic regimens and infection prevention and control strategies to treat neonatal sepsis in regions with a high prevalence of multidrug-resistant infections.

Early-onset neonatal infection and school performance: a Danish nationwide population-based cohort study

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to study the association between early-onset neonatal infection in near-term and term children and school performance based on mandatory tests in reading and mathematics.

METHODS

We conducted a nationwide register-based cohort study including all Danish near-term and term singletons born from 1997 to 2009. Early-onset infection was defined as an invasive bacterial infection during the first week of life. Infections were categorized into diagnosed sepsis or meningitis, and culture-positive sepsis or meningitis verified by bacteria cultured from blood or cerebrospinal fluid. Multivariable mixed model linear regression was used to estimate mean differences in test scores, expressed as standard deviation scores (SDSs) with 95% CI.

RESULTS

Among 638 402 children, 2 362 046 test scores were available from 9 to 15 years of age. A total of 5347 children were diagnosed with sepsis and 73 with meningitis, while 135 also had culture-positive sepsis and 20 had culture-positive meningitis. Diagnosed sepsis was associated with lower test scores with mean differences in reading of -0.08 SDS (95% CI: -0.10 to -0.05) and mathematics of -0.08 SDS (95% CI: -0.10 to -0.05). Diagnosed meningitis was associated with even lower test scores with mean differences in reading of -0.22 SDS (95% CI: -0.43 to 0.00) and mathematics of -0.31 SDS (95% CI: -0.55 to -0.07). These findings remained consistent even in sibling-matched analyses. Similar results were also found when only culture-positive infections were compared with the reference population. Sepsis caused by Escherichia coli showed the largest reduction in test scores, whereas group B Streptococcus appeared not to affect point estimates.

DISCUSSION

Early-onset sepsis was associated with modest reductions in test scores. This may be insignificant for the individual but could be important on a public health level. Early-onset meningitis was associated with more substantial reductions, emphasizing the severity of this condition even in children able to attend public school.

Neonatal bacterial sepsis

Neonatal sepsis remains one of the key challenges of neonatal medicine, and together with preterm birth, causes almost 50% of all deaths globally for children younger than 5 years. Compared with advances achieved for other serious neonatal and early childhood conditions globally, progress in reducing neonatal sepsis has been much slower, especially in low-resource settings that have the highest burden of neonatal sepsis morbidity and mortality. By contrast to sepsis in older patients, there is no universally accepted neonatal sepsis definition. This poses substantial challenges in clinical practice, research, and health-care management, and has direct practical implications, such as diagnostic inconsistency, heterogeneous data collection and surveillance, and inappropriate treatment, health-resource allocation, and education. As the clinical manifestation of neonatal sepsis is frequently non-specific and the current diagnostic standard blood culture has performance limitations, new improved diagnostic techniques are required to guide appropriate and warranted antimicrobial treatment. Although antimicrobial therapy and supportive care continue as principal components of neonatal sepsis therapy, refining basic neonatal care to prevent sepsis through education and quality improvement initiatives remains paramount.

New and old lessons from a devastating case of neonatal E coli meningitis

BACKGROUND

Neonatal Escherichia coli (E coli) meningitis results in significant morbidity and mortality. We present a case of a premature infant with extensive central nervous system (CNS) injury from recurrent E coli infection and the non-traditional methods necessary to identify and clear the infection.

CASE PRESENTATION

The infant was transferred to our institution's pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) after recurrence of E coli CNS infection requiring neurosurgical intervention. He had been treated for early onset sepsis (EOS) with ampicillin and gentamicin for 10 days followed by rapid development of ampicillin-resistant E coli septic shock and meningitis after discontinuation of antibiotics. Sterility of the CNS was not confirmed at the end of 21 days of cefepime therapy and was subsequently followed by recurrent ampicillin-resistant E coli septic shock and CNS infection. Despite 6 weeks of appropriate therapy with sterility of CSF by traditional methods, he suffered from intractable seizures with worsening hydrocephalus. Transferred to our institution, he underwent endoscopic 3rd ventriculostomy with cyst fenestration revealing purulent fluid and significant pleocytosis. An additional 3 weeks of systemic and intraventricular antibiotics with cefepime and tobramycin were given but a significant CNS neutrophil-predominant pleocytosis persisted (average of ∼ 21,000 cells/mm3). Repeated gram stains, cultures, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, and metagenomic next generation sequencing (NGS) testing of CSF were negative for pathogens but acridine orange stain (AO) revealed numerous intact rod-shaped bacteria. After the addition of ciprofloxacin, sterility and resolution of CSF pleocytosis was finally achieved.

CONCLUSION

Neonatal E coli meningitis is a well-known entity but unlike other bacterial infections, it has not proven amenable to shorter, more narrow-spectrum antibiotic courses or limiting invasive procedures such as lumbar punctures. Further, microbiologic techniques to determine CSF sterility suffer from poorly understood limitations leading to premature discontinuation of antibiotics risking further neurologic damage in vulnerable hosts.

Recent design strategies for boosting chemodynamic therapy of bacterial infections

The emergence of drug-resistant bacteria poses a significant threat to people's lives and health as bacterial infections continue to persist. Currently, antibiotic therapy remains the primary approach for tackling bacterial infections. However, the escalating rates of drug resistance coupled with the lag in the development of novel drugs have led to diminishing effectiveness of conventional treatments. Therefore, the development of nonantibiotic-dependent therapeutic strategies has become imperative to impede the rise of bacterial resistance. The emergence of chemodynamic therapy (CDT) has opened up a new possibility due to the CDT can convert H2O2 into •OH via Fenton/Fenton-like reaction for drug-resistant bacterial treatment. However, the efficacy of CDT is limited by a variety of practical factors. To overcome this limitation, the sterilization efficiency of CDT can be enhanced by introducing the therapeutics with inherent antimicrobial capability. In addition, researchers have explored CDT-based combined therapies to augment its antimicrobial effects and mitigate its potential toxic side effects toward normal tissues. This review examines the research progress of CDT in the antimicrobial field, explores various strategies to enhance CDT efficacy and presents the synergistic effects of CDT in combination with other modalities. And last, the current challenges faced by CDT and the future research directions are discussed.

Neurodevelopmental Outcome after Culture-Proven or So-Called Culture-Negative Sepsis in Preterm Infants

(1) Background: Prematurity is a serious condition associated with long-term neurological disability. This study aimed to compare the neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm neonates with or without sepsis. (2) Methods: This single-center retrospective case-control study included infants with birth weight < 1500 g and/or gestational age ≤ 30 weeks. Short-term outcomes, brain MRI findings, and severe functional disability (SFD) at age 24 months were compared between infants with culture-proven or culture-negative sepsis or without sepsis. A chi-squared test or Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the clinical and instrumental characteristics and the outcomes between cases and controls. (3) Results: Infants with sepsis (all sepsis n = 76; of which culture-proven n = 33 and culture-negative n = 43) were matched with infants without sepsis (n = 76). Compared with infants without sepsis, both all sepsis and culture-proven sepsis were associated with SFD. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, SFD was associated with intraventricular hemorrhage (OR 4.7, CI 1.7-13.1, p = 0.002) and all sepsis (OR 3.68, CI 1.2-11.2, p = 0.021). (4) Conclusions: All sepsis and culture-proven sepsis were associated with SFD. Compared with infants without sepsis, culture-negative sepsis was not associated with an increased risk of SFD. Given the association between poor outcomes and culture-proven sepsis, its prevention in the neonatal intensive care unit is a priority.