Course of Lower Respiratory Tract Infection in Young People Treated at the Military Hospital of Smolensk Garrison with Detected Mycoplasma pneumoniae Carrying a Macrolide-Resistant Mutation in 23S rRNA Gene

Abstract

We evaluated the effect of macrolide-resistant mutations in the Mycoplasma pneumoniae 23S rRNA gene on the severity of lower respiratory tract infections in immunocompetent young adults treated at the Smolensk Military Hospital between 25 October 2017, and 17 November 2021. All analyzed cases represented a non-severe infection of the lower respiratory tract: 44 case histories with community-acquired pneumonia and 20 cases with acute bronchitis. The presence of mutations in the gene 23S rRNA of M. pneumoniae was determined with standard Sanger sequencing. The macrolide-resistant genotype was found in 4/44 (9.1%) of the samples of the patients with pneumonia and in 3/20 (15%) of the samples of the patients with acute bronchitis. The analyzed cases with identified M. pneumoniae carrying a mutation in the 23S rRNA gene did not show any differences in the clinical presentation in terms of disease severity caused by M. pneumoniae with the wild-type (WT) phenotype.