Children’s National Hospital case report sounds the alarm for antibiotic resistance

Isolated bacterium tests positive for resistance to two antibiotics for which it has historically been susceptible, highlights importance of antibiotic stewardship A recent meningitis case treated at Children’s National Hospital raises serious concerns about a rise in antibiotic resistance in the common bacterium that caused it, researchers from the hospital write in a case report. Their findings, published online August 3 in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, could change laboratory and clinical practice across the U.S. and potentially around the globe. Neisseria meningitidis is the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in adolescents and an important cause of disease in younger children as well, say case report authors Gillian Taormina,D.O., a third year fellow in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children’s National, who was on service for this recent case, and Joseph Campos, Ph.D., D(ABMM), FAAM, director of the Microbiology Laboratory and the Infectious Diseases Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at Children’s National. As...