NOSOCOMIAL CDC GROUP-IV C-2 BACTEREMIA - EPIDEMIOLOGIC INVESTIGATION BY RANDOMLY AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA ANALYSIS

The CDC group IV c-2 bacterium is a gram-negative bacillus rarely isol ated from clinical specimens. This organism caused catheter-related ba cteremia in five immunocompromised children hospitalized in two distin ct wards of our institution between November 1993 and October 1993. Th ree patients recovered on empiric antibacterial chemotherapy combining ceftazidime and amikacin, and a fourth patient required imipenem inst ead of ceftazidime. The fifth patient recovered without treatment. Cat heter removal was never necessary. The randomly amplified polymorphic DNA technique with three different primers was applied to nine isolate s recovered by culturing blood from the five children and showed that all of the patients harbored isolates of the same genotype. The source of the outbreak could not be determined.