Rise in OB patients with strep A sepsis a mystery to doctors

DENVER (KDVR) — Doctors at Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver are seeing an unexplained uptick in the number of obstetrics patients with strep A sepsis, a life-threatening condition that can cause organ failure.

Dr. Kiersten Williams, an OB hospitalist, said they usually see one of those cases in OB patients every few years. But they saw two cases at PSL and one at Rose Medical Center in one month alone.

“It’s something that’s going on in the world right now, and we don’t know why,” Williams said.

She said typically 1 in 50,000-100,000 pregnant women develop strep A sepsis, so the number of cases is mysterious.

“They were super sick, in the ICU, renal damage, liver damage, multi-organ failure,” she said.

The patients did not get strep in the hospital, Williams said. It was already in their bodies.

Group A strep common, can lead to bad infections

Group A strep is very common. Williams said it is the same bacteria that causes strep throat, and it can colonize the throat or other parts of the body and be there for long periods without having much impact.

However, if the immune system is weakened, or there is some trigger, it can sometimes develop into a terrible infection. This could include necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating bacteria, or strep A sepsis, when the infection gets into the bloodstream and can cause multi-organ failure.

“It’s estimated that about 0.6% of women have group A strep in their vagina, but obviously, not 0.6% of our patients have really nasty infections from it. And we’re not sure what causes them to have really nasty infections from it, but something has gone wrong, and they got super, super sick,” Williams said.

The infections can be fatal. Patients can lose limbs.

But Williams said it is so rare that doctors may not diagnose it right away, so she wants to raise awareness about symptoms.

“If your pain is not getting better, if you’re getting a fever, don’t sit on it, don’t blow it off — get seen,” she said.

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