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Both the prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections and the proportion of complicated pneumonias that are caused by S. aureus have markedly increased during the past decade. Investigators evaluated clinical characteristics of culture-proven S. aureus pneumonia in 117 patients (median age, 0.9 years) treated at Texas Children's Hospital from August 2001 to April 2009.
Overall, 81% of children were previously healthy, 62% presented with empyema, and 14% presented with lung abscess. Respiratory viral cultures were positive in 18 of 68 (26%) tested patients: Coinfections included parainfluenza (6), influenza (5), and rhinovirus (4). Among tested children, those with viral coinfections were significantly more like…