This book describes the growing body of information on the epidemiology,
clinical manifestations, transmission, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and
treatment of Kingella kingae infections in young children. In
addition, it covers experimental methods that have been developed to
study the microbiology, genetics, and virulence factors of K. kingae,
information that provides the foundation for new approaches to treatment
and prevention of K. kingae disease. With this content in mind,
excerpts from the book will be of relevance for clinicians who care for
pediatric patients, for clinical microbiologists who are involved in
detecting organisms in clinical specimens, and for scientists who are
studying K. kingae in an effort to develop novel targets for
antimicrobial therapy and new approaches to prevention.
First isolated in the 1960s by Elizabeth O. King, a bacteriologist at
the CDC, Kingella kingae was largely ignored over the next two decades
as a human pathogen because of its uncommon recovery from patients with
disease. However, in recent years K. kingae has been increasingly
recognized as a clinically important pathogen in young children, and is
currently recognized as the leading cause of osteoarticular infections
in young children in a growing number of countries. Research into this
organism has grown tremendously over the past 15 years, resulting in a
better appreciation of the importance of K. kingae in pediatric
patients and of the molecular mechanisms of disease.
