Introduction: To analyze the incidence of perinatal sepsis due to group B streptococcus (GBS) as related to compliance with recommendations for its prevention issued by the Catalan Societies for Obstetrics, for Pediatrics, and for Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology in 1997.
Methods: The study was conducted from 1994 to 2001 in 10 Barcelona-area hospitals, where 157,848 live infants were born.
Results: GBS disease was diagnosed in 129 neonates. Incidence decreased by 86.1% over the study period, from 1.92 cases per 1000 live births in 1994 to 0.26 per 1000 in 2001 (p < 0.001). Changes in the characteristics of perinatal GBS disease were observed in the 18 cases diagnosed in the last 3 years, the time when prevention policies were operative. The incidence was lower (0.28 per 1000 vs. 1.19 for the previous 5 years, p <.00006), the proportion of mothers without risk factors was greater (77.8% vs. 55.9%, p 5 0.009), and premature neonates were not affected (0% vs. 12.6%, p 5 0.003); nevertheless, mortality was similar (5.5% vs. 4.5%, p 5 0.8). Among these 18 cases of sepsis, 9 can be considered failures inherent to the prevention policy and 9 failures of compliance. Only 3 hospitals had prevention policies in 1994, whereas all 10 used intrapartum prophylaxis based on screening results in 2001.
Conclusions: A substantial decrease in the incidence of perinatal GBS disease coinciding with the application of prevention measures for this pathology has been registered in 10 participating hospitals over the 1994-2001 period.