[Progress of antibiotic therapy in pediatrics]

The advances in the antibiotic therapy of acute bacterial infections can be shown by the decreasing frequency of complications and fatalities in children. The annual death-rate from pneumonia in children aged one month to 15 years has fallen in Schleswig-Holstein from 1.8 (1954-1958) to 0.6 per 10,000 (1969-1973). At the same time the total death-rate in the same age group has fallen from 14.5 to 9.3 per 10,000 children. The percentage of pneumonia in the total death-rate was 5.3% in 1971-1973: 1.6% in the first month of life and after the sixteenth year 2.3%. Pneumonia was in fourth place (after accident, malformation and neoplasm) as a cause of death in children more than one month old. Of 245 children operated on for congenital heart disease in 1983-1984, bacterial and fungal infections occurred in 3.6% compared to 17.8% of 469 in 1968-1972. Staphylococcal infections decreased from 3.4% to 0.8% and those caused by gram-negative bacteria from 6.9% to 0. Perioperative prophylaxis was performed with cefotaxime plus piperacillin in 1983-1984 versus oxacillin plus ampicillin in 1968-1972. Between 1984 and 1989, 944 children (premature babies and term babies) were treated in the intensive care unit of the University Children's Hospital of Kiel. The incidence of sepsis was 5% (congenital sepsis 4%, sepsis acquired after birth 1%). Early diagnosis and treatment of severe bacterial infections with cefotaxime plus piperacillin reduced the mortality rate of sepsis to 2%. Sepsis never developed under treatment with cefotaxime plus piperacillin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)