Evaluation of the Results of Group B Streptococcus Screening by MALDI-TOF MS among Pregnant Women in a Hungarian Hospital

Abstract

Pregnant women colonized by Streptococcus agalactiae, or group B streptococcus (GBS), are at an increased risk of premature delivery and stillbirth, and their neonates can be endangered by the development of an invasive GBS disease. In this study, the results of the GBS screening among pregnant women performed between 2012 and 2018 (n = 19267) are presented. For the GBS positive samples, the antibiotic susceptibility of the isolated strains was also tested (n = 3554). During the examined period, the colonization rate varied between 17.4% and 19.8%. The overall rate of erythromycin and clindamycin resistance in the GBS positive samples was 34.9% and 34.6%, respectively. The frequency of the erythromycin and clindamycin resistant strains showed an increasing tendency. An analysis of the MALDI-TOF MS spectra of 260 GBS isolates revealed that 46.5% of them belonged to either the ST-1 or the ST-17 sequence types, indicating a high prevalence of these potentially invasive GBS strains in our region. More than half of the strains identified as ST-1 (52.1%) proved to be resistant to erythromycin and clindamycin.

Keywords: MALDI-TOF MS; ST-1; ST-17; Streptococcus agalactiae; antibiotic susceptibility.