Higher incidence of MRSA in patients who smoke and have fracture-related infection
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Overall, 38.6% of the current smokers had fistulas or draining sinus tracts at the fracture site.
- This compares with 22.8% of patients who were nonsmokers.
SAN FRANCISCO — Among patients with fracture-related infections, smoking was associated with increased incidence of MRSA infection, fistulas and draining sinus tracts at fracture sites, according to recently presented data.
Results of the single-institution retrospective analysis were presented at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons Annual Meeting, here.
“The big thing is that if you have a patient with a fracture-related infection who is a smoker, and this kind of goes for a lot of our patients, the best thing that you can do for them health-wise is get them to stop smoking. Sometimes that’s impossible, but if you can, it’s going to have a positive impact on their ability to treat fracture-related infection,” Joseph Johnson, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, told Healio.
Johnson and colleagues studied 201 patients who had reoperation for fracture-related infections from January 2013 to April 2021. Overall, 155 patients were current smokers and 146 patients were nonsmokers. Researchers compared patients’ hospital course and postoperative outcomes.
At time of fracture-related reoperation, researchers found the current smokers to be younger, more likely male, and have lower mean BMIs and Charlson Comorbidity Index scores compared with the nonsmokers. Additionally, 38.6% of the smoking cohort had fistulas or draining sinus tracts at the fracture site compared with 22.8% of patients in the nonsmoking cohort. Overall, 29.7% of smokers had MRSA infections and 11% Staphylococcus epidermidis infections upon presentation, compared with 18.5% and 19.9% of nonsmokers, respectively.
“If you’re treating a patient who was a smoker with a fracture-related infection, you might have to be a little bit more aggressive with surgical management just because this infection is going to be more difficult to take care of,” Johnson said.
Collapse
Gross EG, et al. Paper 17. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting; Feb. 12-16, 2024; San Francisco.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts