News in brief - Jan. 17, 2011

Young adults' reported sexual behavior at odds with STD test results - C. diff infections growing among hospitalized children

Young adults' reported sexual behavior at odds with STD test results

There often are discrepancies between young adults' self-reported recent sexual behavior and their testing positive for sexually transmitted diseases, according to a new study.

For the study, published online Jan. 3 in Pediatrics, researchers examined data on 14,012 young adults who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. More than 20,000 7th- through 12th-graders were first enrolled in the study in 1994. A portion of the group was re-interviewed and tested for three STDs in 2001 and 2002. Researchers tested for Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Trichomonas vaginalis.

They found that more than 10% of the participants who tested positive for at least one STD reported abstaining from sex during the past 12 months. Among those young adults, about 6% said they never had sex (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21199852).

The study authors suggest routine STD screening for all youths regardless of their self-reported sexual history to reduce such infections.

C. diff infections growing among hospitalized children

Clostridium difficile infections are increasing among hospitalized children in the U.S., according to a study published online Jan. 3 in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The study examined hospital records representative of about 10.5 million children who were discharged in 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2006. The patients were part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids' Inpatient Database. In total, less than 1% of the children were diagnosed with C. diff.

Researchers found that the number of C. diff cases increased by an average of 15% each year. In 1997, there were 3,565 cases, compared with 7,779 in 2006. The study authors said physician awareness of the growing prevalence of C. diff in hospitalized children could help control the infection (archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/archpediatrics.2010.282v1).

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