AUTHOR=Ke Yefang , Ye Lina , Zhu Pan , Zhu Zhe 

TITLE=The clinical characteristics and microbiological investigation of pediatric burn patients with wound infections in a tertiary hospital in Ningbo, China: A ten-year retrospective study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1034099

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2022.1034099

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p>Burn is one of the leading causes of death and disability in children worldwide, and wound infection is an excellent challenge in burn treatment. We performed a retrospective review of pediatric burn patients with wound infections to reveal their clinical data and investigate pathogens’ distribution and drug resistance patterns to provide references for treatment. As a result, 330 pediatric burn patients with wound infections were identified; 65.8% (217/330) were &lt; 2 years old. Most of the injuries were scalded and involved &lt;10% total body surface area in size (TBSA), mainly causing II-degree burn and II + III-degree burn. Three hundred and fifty nine strains of pathogens were isolated, the primary pathogens were <italic>Staphylococcus aureus</italic> (45.4%) and <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic> (18.7%). Both <italic>S. aureus</italic> and <italic>P. aeruginosa</italic> isolated from 2012 to 2016 were more likely to be multi-resistant than those isolated from 2017 to 2021, as they were significantly associated with resistance to ≥4 Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI) classes (<italic>p</italic> = 0.040 and 0.006, respectively). In conclusion, children aged &lt;2 years old were the main pediatric burn patients with wound infections. The primary bacteria isolated from the wound were <italic>S. aureus</italic> and <italic>P. aeruginosa</italic>, with a decreasing tendency of multi-resistance.</p>