The prevalence of postoperative invasive Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections in patients who have undergone knee or hip prostheses was examined in a recent study.
Researchers conducted a nested retrospective cohort analysis that included adult patients who had undergone insertion of knee or hip prostheses with clean or clean-contaminated wound class at 11 hospitals between 2003 and 2006. After each procedure, the researchers identified invasive S. aureus infections, surgical site infections and bloodstream infections.
In all, 13,719 prosthetic insertion procedures were identified.
Highlighted below are five findings from the study, as outlined in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control.
1. Out of more than 13,000 procedures, researchers identified 92 S. aureus infections.
2. Surgical site infections were the most common (80 percent) type of S. aureus infections, with significantly higher prevalence than bloodstream S. aureus infections (10 percent) or surgical site and bloodstream infections combined (10 percent).
3. The rates of invasive S. aureus infection were 0.57 per 100 knee procedures and 0.83 per 100 hip procedures.
4. More than half (53 percent) of the S. aureus infections were classified as MRSA.
5. The median time-to-onset of infection was 34 days for knee insertion and 26 days for hip insertion.
Although postoperative invasive S. aureus infections were fairly rare in patients who had undergone knee or hip prostheses, MRSA infections were relatively common, according to the study.
"Optimizing preventative efforts may greatly reduce the healthcare burden associated with S. aureus infections," concluded the study authors.
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