TITLE:
Uropathogen and Resistance Trends of Urinary Tract Infection in Children: Lessons from Longterm Surveillance
AUTHORS:
Obinna Nwankwo, Mansoor Ahmed, Pamela Onoka, Timothy Reynolds
KEYWORDS:
Paediatric Urinary Tract Infection, Antimicrobial Resistance, Escherichia coli, Antibiotic Susceptibility
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pathology,
Vol.16 No.1,
December
17,
2025
ABSTRACT: Background: Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) are common in children and organisms associated with UTI have shown increasing resistance to commonly used antibiotics. This study aims to evaluate common organisms causing UTI, determine their susceptibility pattern to commonly used oral antibiotics for treatment of UTI and compare trends with past studies in the same geographic region. Methods: 4-year retrospective review of positive urine cultures in children Results: Among the 1818 episodes of confirmed UTI that met inclusion criteria, 87.3% were females while 12.7% were males. 67.4% UTIs were in children E coli accounted for 83.3% of all organisms, followed by Enterecoccus (5.6%), Klebsiella (4.6%) and Proteus (2.1%). Analysis of antimicrobial resistance rate showed E coli was highly susceptible to nitrofurantoin (95.3%) and cefalexin (92.9%) but had high resistance to trimethoprim (26.7%) and amoxicillin (42.1%). Conclusion: Coliform resistance to amoxicillin and trimethoprim remains high. Hence, these antibiotics may not be the right first-line antibiotic choice for empiric treatment of UTI in children.