Community-Acquired Skin Infections in the Age of Methicillin-Resistant Organisms. Final Report

摘要

The epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has changed considerably over the past decade. Initially, hospitalized patients acquired MRSA in the health care environment, but now cases of MRSA infections have been found in people who were not hospitalized and had no underlying illnesses. An estimated 95,000 people in the United States developed MRSA infections during 2005, and 19,000 Americans died from MRSA infections that year. Fourteen percent of those MRSA infections were community associated and 85 percent were hospital or other health setting associated. Recent data show that Americans visit the doctor approximately 12 million times each year to get checked for suspected Staphlococcus or MRSA skin infections. The prevalence of these skin and soft tissue infections acquired in the community by persons without established risk factors for MRSA has increased rapidly over the past decade. Community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) has the potential to develop quickly from a localized abscess or furuncle into an invasive skin infection requiring hospital admission and has also been associated with severe complications, such as sepsis and necrotizing pneumonia. Since most CA-MRSA infections are managed initially on an outpatient basis, it is critical that primary care clinicians recognize and appropriately treat patients suspected of having such infections.