Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the hospital

doi:10.1136/bmj.b364

Published 12 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b364
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b364

Clinical Review

Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the hospital

Jan Kluytmans, consultant microbiologist and head of infection control, professor of medical microbiology¹^,2, Marc Struelens, head of the department of microbiology, director of Laboratoire de Référence des Staphylocoques, professor of medical microbiology³^,4^,5

¹ Laboratory for Microbiology and Infection Control, Amphia Hospital Breda, 4800 RK Breda, Netherlands, ² Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands , ³ Department of Microbiology Hopital Erasme, 1070 Brussels, Belgium, ⁴ Laboratoire de Référence des Staphylocoques, Hopital Erasme, 1070 Brussels, Belgium, ⁵ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculté de Médecine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1070 Brussels, Belgium

Correspondence to: J Kluytmans jankluytmans@gmail.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)is now a major cause of disease—in the US in 2005 moredeaths were caused by MRSA than by HIV

In addition to the wellestablished hospital associated MRSA strains, new virulent strainshave recently appeared in the general population

Moleculartechnologies can rapidly detect MRSA but their cost effectivenessis unclear

MRSA can be controlled by strict adherence to multifacetedstrategies, including screening and transmission based precautions

Cliniciansmust be aware of MRSA in community infections of skin and softtissues and use a low threshold for microbiological testing

Vancomycinis the standard treatment for serious MRSA infections. Alternativenew drugs include linezolid, daptomycin, and tigecycline, whichshould be used with specialist advice

The burden of disease from meticillin resistant Staphylococcusaureus (MRSA) infections is high. Around 100 000 invasive MRSAinfections occurred in 2005 in the United States, and the numberof associated . . . [Full text of this article]

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