Michael Pichichero and Janet Casey, who work at the University of Rochester and Legacy Pediatrics in Rochester, N.Y. spotted the drug-resistant strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria in nine out of about 1,800 Rochester children who had a middle ear infection from 2003 to 2006.
The bacterial strain resisted all antibiotics that are approved by the FDA for use in children.
"We found a superbug causing ear infections in Rochester -- the Legacy strain -- that's resistant to all antibiotics approved by the FDA for use in children,"
The doctors said they used "aggressive therapy", either surgery or levofloxacin also known as Levaquin, an antibiotic unapproved for children to treat the drug-resistant ear infections.
However, the researchers have also warned that it could be dangerous for doctors to use this treatment in kids with difficult-to-treat ear infections, because doing so could teach the bacteria to resist levofloxacin.
Researchers also note that the superbug, called the 19A strain, was most likely created by a combination of the speed of bacterial evolution and the over prescribing of antibiotics.
"Children with the new strain of superbug represented a small subset of those in our practice, but the results are worrisome, especially since there are no new antibiotics in the pipeline for ear infections in children," said Michael Pichichero.
Nearly 83 percent of American children experience one or more ear infections by age three. Acute otitis media is a bacterial ear infection that causes pain, fluid buildup and hearing loss in the worst cases.
The report appears in Thursday's edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
