Clinical Infectious Diseases

03/04/2002
By Veronica Rose

The increasing incidence in the 1990s of paediatric empyema is associated with Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 1 infection, outpatient treatment with certain antibiotics and the use of ibuprofen and varicella.

Paediatricians and microbiologists at the primary Children's Medical Centre in Salt Lake City, Utah, University of Utah and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas designed an investigation into the increased incidence in Salt Lake City.

One-hundred-and-fifty-three (28.3 percent) of 540 children hospitalized with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CAP) between July 1, 1993 and July 1, 1999, had empyema. During the study period, the researchers noted an annually increased incidence of the complication in this population – from one to five cases in 100,000 – for children below 19 years of age.

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