Targeted empiric antibiotic therapy for children with non-oncological comorbidities and community-onset invasive bacterial infections

Febrile children with comorbidities at the emergency department - a multicentre observational study

We aimed to describe characteristics and management of children with comorbidities attending European emergency departments (EDs) with fever. MOFICHE (Management and Outcome of Fever in children in Europe) is a prospective multicentre study (12 European EDs, 8 countries). Febrile children with comorbidities were compared to those without in terms of patient characteristics, markers of disease severity, management, and diagnosis. Comorbidity was defined as a chronic underlying condition that is expected to last > 1 year. We performed multivariable logistic regression analysis, displaying adjusted odds ratios (aOR), adjusting for patient characteristics. We included 38,110 patients, of whom 5906 (16%) had comorbidities. Most common comorbidities were pulmonary, neurologic, or prematurity. Patients with comorbidities more often were ill appearing (20 versus 16%, p < 0.001), had an ED-Paediatric Early Warning Score of > 15 (22 versus 12%, p < 0.001), or a C-reactive protein > 60 mg/l (aOR 1.4 (95%CI 1.3-1.6)). They more often required life-saving interventions (aOR 2.7, 95% CI 2.2-3.3), were treated with intravenous antibiotics (aOR 2.3, 95%CI 2.1-2.5), and were admitted to the ward (aOR 2.2, 95%CI 2.1-2.4) or paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) (aOR 5.5, 95% CI 3.8-7.9). They were more often diagnosed with serious bacterial infections (aOR 1.8, 95%CI 1.7-2.0), including sepsis/meningitis (aOR 4.6, 95%CI 3.2-6.7). Children most at risk for sepsis/meningitis were children with malignancy/immunodeficiency (aOR 14.5, 8.5-24.8), while children with psychomotor delay/neurological disease were most at risk for life-saving interventions (aOR 5.3, 4.1-6.9) or PICU admission (aOR 9.7, 6.1-15.5).

CONCLUSIONS

Our data show how children with comorbidities are a population at risk, as they more often are diagnosed with bacterial infections and more often require PICU admission and life-saving interventions.

WHAT IS KNOWN

• While children with comorbidity constitute a large part of ED frequent flyers, they are often excluded from studies.

WHAT IS NEW

• Children with comorbidities in general are more ill upon presentation than children without comorbidities. • Children with comorbidities form a heterogeneous group; specific subgroups have an increased risk for invasive bacterial infections, while others have an increased risk of invasive interventions such as PICU admission, regardless of the cause of the fever.

Selecting appropriate empirical antibiotic regimens for paediatric bloodstream infections: application of a Bayesian decision model to local and pooled antimicrobial resistance surveillance data

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of weighted-incidence syndromic combination antibiograms (WISCAs) to inform the selection of empirical antibiotic regimens for suspected paediatric bloodstream infections (BSIs) by comparing WISCAs derived using data from single hospitals and from a multicentre surveillance dataset.

METHODS

WISCAs were developed by estimating the coverage of five empirical antibiotic regimens for childhood BSI using a Bayesian decision tree. The study used microbiological data on ∼2000 bloodstream isolates collected over 2 years from 19 European hospitals. We evaluated the ability of a WISCA to show differences in regimen coverage at two exemplar hospitals. For each, a WISCA was first calculated using only their local data; a second WISCA was calculated using pooled data from all 19 hospitals.

RESULTS

The estimated coverage of the five regimens was 72%-86% for Hospital 1 and 79%-94% for Hospital 2, based on their own data. In both cases, the best regimens could not be definitively identified because the differences in coverage were not statistically significant. For Hospital 1, coverage estimates derived using pooled data gave sufficient precision to reveal clinically important differences among regimens, including high coverage provided by a narrow-spectrum antibiotic combination. For Hospital 2, the hospital and pooled data showed signs of heterogeneity and the use of pooled data was judged not to be appropriate.

CONCLUSIONS

The Bayesian WISCA provides a useful approach to pooling information from different sources to guide empirical therapy and could increase confidence in the selection of narrow-spectrum regimens.