Invasive Rothia infections in children with acute myeloid leukemia: A report from the Canadian infections in AML research group

Abstract

Rothia spp. (previously termed Stomatococcus) are normal flora that can cause invasive infections in immunocompromised hosts. The objective of this study was to describe infection characteristics and outcomes of Rothia spp. infections in a large cohort of children with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This retrospective chart review is a subanalysis of a larger study in which the aim was to identify factors associated with infection in pediatric patients with AML. Only sterile site infections occurring during chemotherapy were included. Among 578 children with AML, 17 (2.9%) children with at least 1 Rothia spp. infection were identified. All children were neutropenic at the time of infection. Eight (47%) had antecedent colitis or mucositis. Of the 17 infections, 16 were bacteremia and 1 was meningitis. Sepsis occurred in 4 patients, and 1 patient died due to infection. Rothia spp. infections are rare in pediatric AML but can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Future studies should describe trends in incidence and resistance patterns over time.

Transcriptional Profiling of C. albicans in a Two Species Biofilm with Rothia dentocariosa

“…( R. dentocariosa, R. aeria, R. nasimurium , and R. amarae ) are part of the normal flora of the human oropharynx and upper respiratory tract (Trivedi and Malhotra, 2015) and are commonly associated with dental caries and periodontal disease (Trivedi and Malhotra, 2015). Currently, this organism is considered as an emerging opportunistic pathogen and recent reports describe it as causing an array of life threatening diseases such as bacteremia (Ramanan et al, 2014; Abidi et al, 2016; Wang et al, 2016), endocarditis (Shands, 1988; Ruben, 1993), peritonitis (Morris et al, 2004; Keng et al, 2012), bone and joint infections (Trivedi and Malhotra, 2015), pneumonia (Wallet et al, 1997; Maraki and Papadakis, 2015), endophthalmitis (MacKinnon et al, 2001; Alvarez-Ramos et al, 2016), and prosthetic device infection (Elving et al, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003; Millsap et al, 2001). Oropharyngeal infections due to adhering yeast and bacteria are responsible for a number of biomaterials-related infections, such as denture stomatitis (Radford et al, 1999) or malfunctioning of voice prosthesis in laryngectomized patients (Mahieu et al, 1986).…”

New Phage-Derived Antibacterial Enzyme PolaR Targeting Rothia spp.

“…Since no harmful effects have been observed in mammalian cells treated with PolaR, we propose this enzyme as a new potential antibacterial agent that targets Rothia, an opportunistic pathogen causing severe infections particularly in immunocompromised patients. Difficult Rothia infections have been reported in neutropenic patients and pediatric cancer patients [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57]. It can be associated with endocarditis, bacteremia, prosthetic infection and pneumonia [13,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64] and it has been detected in the sputum of cystic fibrosis patients [12,[15][16][17][18]65,66].…”