Patient movement increases risk for transferring P. aeruginosa infection in cystic fibrosis

The movement of patients within cystic fibrosis centers appeared likely to be an important risk factor for the acquisition of shared P. aeruginosa strain infections, according to study results.

“Our study shows that the movement of patients with cystic fibrosis between different health care settings seems to be an important risk factor for the acquisition of transmissible P. aeruginosa infections,” Timothy J. Kidd, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University in the U.K., told Healio.com/Pulmonology.

Kidd and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study to assess the movement of patients with cystic fibrosis infected with P. aeruginosa between September 2007 and June 2010.

The analysis included 983 patients at 18 cystic fibrosis centers in Australia.

Researchers applied social network analysis to patient movement data from patients infected with P. aeruginosa to assess the role of patient mobility in P. aeruginosa genotype prevalence.

The researchers also used networks that linked treatment centers based on the movement of patients that attended adult and pediatric cystic fibrosis centers and compared them with the movement of patients infected with all P. aeruginosa strains, unique strains and common Australian shared strains.

AUST-01 infections — a predominant Australian strain of P. aeruginosa — appeared more in a measure of the number of unique links directed from a particular network node (P = .004) and a measure of subgroup adhesion (k-core) (P = .005). AUST-02 — another predominant Australian strain — appeared more in a measure of the total number of unique links that a particular network node had (P = .02) and k-core (P = .07) estimates for the previous health care facilities.    

Kidd told Healio.com/Pulmonology about the need for preventing the transfer of the P. aeruginosa infection.

“These results show the importance of prioritizing infection control interventions, including prospective molecular surveillance, strict infection control, hospital design and ventilation to limit cross-infection,” he said. – by Ryan McDonald

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.