ABSTRACT
Although anaerobes have been reported to account for 8% to 11% of episodes of bacteremia in adults,1 anaerobic organisms rarely have been isolated from blood cultures of pediatric patients. These microbes represent a small percentage of the total number of positive blood cultures recovered from children, which may be because of the difficulty in isolating and identifying these organisms. There is, however, a growing awareness of the role of anaerobes in bacteremia,2-6 especially in children with certain predisposing conditions, in newborns who are at high risk (see Chap. 12), and in those with necrotizing enterocolitis (see Chap 13).
