Innovative Strategies for Reducing Nasal Colonization

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) can cause difficult-to-treat infections due to their antibiotic resistance. Approximately 90,000 people are affected yearly, and 20,000 people die from infections caused by bacteria like MRSA. Research shows that nasal antiseptics are a highly effective means of reducing nasal colonization of bacteria and subsequent infection.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. MRSA is any strain of Staphylococcus aureus that has developed, through horizontal gene transfer and natural selection, multi- resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, which include the penicillins (methicillin, dicloxacillin, nafcillin, oxacillin, etc.) and the cephalosporins. MRSA evolved from horizontal gene transfer of the mecA gene to at least five distinct S. aureus lineages. Strains unable to resist these antibiotics are classified as methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus, or MSSA. The evolution of such resistance does not cause the organism to be more intrinsically virulent than strains of S. aureus that have no antibiotic resistance, but resistance does make MRSA infection more difficult to treat with standard types of antibiotics and thus more dangerous.

This following paper details the impacts of hospital acquired infections financially and medically, and provides proven strategies on achieving nasal decolonization.

Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle