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The type of hospital neonatal intensive care unit may have an effect on the infant microbiome, with differences observed between infants in older and newer hospital NICUs, according to a pilot study presented here.
There was a significant difference at a genus level between infants' environmental and skin microbiomes between a NICU in an older hospital, where infants were all kept in the same room, and a new hospital, where infants had separate rooms, reported Suchitra K. Hourigan, MD, of Inova Translational Medicine Institute in Falls Church, Va., and colleagues.
The type of hospital neonatal intensive care unit may have an effect on the infant microbiome, with differences observed between infants in older and newer hospital NICUs, according to a pilot study presented here.
There was a significant difference at a genus level between infants' environmental and skin microbiomes between a NICU in an older hospital, where infants were all kept in the same room, and a new hospital, where infants had separate rooms, reported Suchitra K. Hourigan, MD, of Inova Translational Medicine Institute in Falls Church, Va., and colleagues.
Overall, the authors detected several pathogens from infants in both NICUs, including respiratory syncytial virus, Clostridium difficile, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and parasites (such as Acanthamoeba polyphaga). However, none resulted in clinical disease, the authors said.
They found significantly higher levels of STL polyomavirus and MW polyomavirus (Kruskal-Wallis, P=0.017). Also, papillomavirus trended toward significance in the environment of the shared space NICU.
There was a significant difference in antibiotic resistance genes between the two NICUs, with 2-week stool samples, as well as skin and environmental swabs from the private room NICU with a greater number of differentially abundant antibiotic resistance genes.