Abstract
Pregnant women colonized by Streptococcus agalactiae, or group B streptococcus (GBS), are at an increased risk of premature delivery and stillbirth, and their neonates can be endangered by the development of an invasive GBS disease. In this study, the results of the GBS screening among pregnant women performed between 2012 and 2018 (n = 19267) are presented. For the GBS positive samples, the antibiotic susceptibility of the isolated strains was also tested (n = 3554). During the examined period, the colonization rate varied between 17.4% and 19.8%. The overall rate of erythromycin and clindamycin resistance in the GBS positive samples was 34.9% and 34.6%, respectively. The frequency of the erythromycin and clindamycin resistant strains showed an increasing tendency. An analysis of the MALDI-TOF MS spectra of 260 GBS isolates revealed that 46.5% of them belonged to either the ST-1 or the ST-17 sequence types, indicating a high prevalence of these potentially invasive GBS strains in our region. More than half of the strains identified as ST-1 (52.1%) proved to be resistant to erythromycin and clindamycin.
Highlights
IntroductionStreptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae), known as group B streptococcus (GBS), may cause serious infections in newborns, pregnant and postpartum women, and immunocompromised adults [1,2]
Streptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae), known as group B streptococcus (GBS), may cause serious infections in newborns, pregnant and postpartum women, and immunocompromised adults [1,2].This Gram-positive β-haemolytic bacterium can cause urinary tract infections, fever, chorioamnionitis, endometritis, and puerperal sepsis in women [3,4,5], and it is among the leading causes of neonatal invasive diseases in the United States and Europe [5,6,7,8]
We report our experiences in the application of the rapid MALDI-TOF MS-based detection of ST-17 and ST-1 GBS
Summary
Streptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae), known as group B streptococcus (GBS), may cause serious infections in newborns, pregnant and postpartum women, and immunocompromised adults [1,2]. This Gram-positive β-haemolytic bacterium can cause urinary tract infections, fever, chorioamnionitis, endometritis, and puerperal sepsis in women [3,4,5], and it is among the leading causes of neonatal invasive diseases in the United States and Europe [5,6,7,8]. 10%–30% of pregnant women are colonized by GBS without any symptoms [6,9,10]. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is an effective method for the identification of GBS strains at the species level [11,12]
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