Antibiotic Resistance in Global Pediatric Oncology Centers

Antibiotic resistance is one of the major health threats facing global as well as domestic populations, however it is not well characterized in pediatric patients. Pediatric patients receiving cancer-directed therapy have several risk factors implicated in development of antibiotic resistance including multiple courses of antibiotics, repeated exposures to the hospital environment, indwelling devices and chemotherapy-related damage to mucosal barriers. The investigators propose to capitalize upon the unique position of St. Jude Global within the global pediatric oncology community by using its regional alliance network to describe the molecular epidemiology of antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria in this population. Primary Objectives 1. Describe the epidemiology and the phenotypic and previously determined molecular determinants of antimicrobial resistance in Gram-negative organisms isolated from pediatric diagnostic specimens in selected Central American and US sites with capacity to treat pediatric cancer 2. Utilize strain typing by whole genome sequencing to describe relatedness between organisms at participating sites