This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
MRSA infections are difficult to predict in PICU
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Screening children for methicillin-resistant Staphyloccoccus aureus upon admission and weekly thereafter is important because it is often difficult to predict who is carrying this resistant strain, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
In 2007, the researchers began screening all patients upon admission and weekly thereafter until discharge. Six percent of the 1,674 children admitted to the pediatric intensive-care unit (PICU) at Hopkins Children’s Center between 2007 and 2008 were colonized with MRSA. Of the 72 children who tested positive for MRSA, 60% carried the community-associated strain and 75% of all MRSA carriers had no previous history or MRSA. MRSA was more common in younger children — 3 years old on average — and among black children.
The researchers noted that patients with MRSA had longer hospital stays (eight days) than MRSA-free patients (five days) and longer PICU stays (three days) than non-colonized patients (two days), which highlights the importance of detecting these patients early.
Eight patients who were MRSA-free upon admission became colonized with MRSA while in the PICU. Of those eight children, four developed clinical signs of infection, meaning that the other four would not have been identified as MRSA carriers if the hospital was not performing weekly screenings of all patients. The screening is done in hopes to isolate the patients carrying the bacteria and prevent MRSA from spreading to noncarriers.
The research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the Thomas Wilson Sanitarium for Children in Baltimore and by the CDC.
Milstone A. Emerg Infect Dis. 2010; 16:647-655.