Staphylococcal Cervical Adenitis in Young Infants

Abstract

Etiologic studies of cervical adenitis have rarely separated the cause of the infection in relation to the age of the patient. In older children, group A β-hemolytic Streptococcus has often been found to be the common offending organism and antibiotic therapy is frequently prescribed with this in mind.^1,2 There are no comparable data for infants so that the most probable etiologic agent cannot be surmised from past experience. The two cases reported below emphasize the hazard of assuming that group A β-Streptococcus was the responsible agent, emphasize the necessity of considering other bacterial genera such as staphylococci, and indicate the need for needle aspiration of the node to establish a precise etiologic diagnosis.