INDIAN PEDIATRICS VOLUME 33- AUGUST 1996 683 Brief Reports Disseminated Staphylococcal Disease S.K. Kabra Y. Jain A. Kataria S. John A. Chatterjee V. Seth Staphylococcal infection continues to be a common cause of serious progressive skin, soft tissue and post traumatic infection in community(l) The information regarding disseminated staphylococcal dis- ease (DSD) is scanty in the pediatric literature(2-4) and this prompted us to report our experience. Subjects and Methods Ten patients diagnosed as disseminated From the Department of Pediatrics, All India Institude of Medical Sciences Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029. Reprint requests: Dr. S.K. Kabra, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029. Received for publication: September 20,1995; Accepted: February 1,1996 staphylococcal disease on the basis of isolation of Staphylococcus aureus from blood and two anatomically different sites, were studied from hospital records. The details of history, physical and laboratory findings, hospital course and outcome were recorded. Results Over a period of 2 years (June 1992 to June 1994), 10 patients were diagnosed to be suffering from DSD in the Pediatric wards of our institution. The age of the patients varied from 2 years to 12 years; 8 cases were above 5 years. Male to female ratio was 1.5. Seven patients were from urban and 3 were from rural background. None of the subjects had history of repeated infections in the past. All acquired infection in the community. Two patients gave a history of admission in another hospital for the present illness before coming to our center. All patients at onset of illness had moderate to high grade fever. The mean duration of fever was 4.8 (±1.68) days. The other symptoms at onset of illness included pain abdomen (n=4), pain chest (n=2), joint swelling (n=2), joint pain (n=2) and boil over chest (n=l). Empyema with underlying pneumonia was present in 6 (60%) patients and 2 cases had only pneumonia. Pericardial effusion