Fred Gordin of the Infectious Diseases Section of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., reported in a commentary in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology on the evolving epidemiology of MRSA. His research team reviewed infection control data from clinical MRSA isolates during a period from 2001 to 2007. The researchers found that the number of new clinical MRSA isolates increased during the study period, from 129 to 221, and the number of HA-MRSA isolates decreased from 78 isolates to 46. Gordin said there needs to be a better understanding of the risk factors contributing to the increase in the incidence of MRSA infection, and that approaches to prevention, screening and treatment need to reflect the changing epidemiology of MRSA.

A promising treatment that reduced the severity of skin and soft-tissue damage caused by USA300, the leading cause of the Staphylococcus aureus infections in the U.S., in laboratory mice has been discovered by scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Chicago. The investigators accomplished the reductions by neutralizing a toxin known as alpha-hemolysin, or Hla, that is associated with S. aureus.

Emory University School of Medicine researchers reported in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology that using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer to clean hands as well as stethoscopes between patients could become an accepted bedside practice. The researchers said cleaning the stethoscope with an alcohol wipe is more effective, but most clinicians consider such a move impractical and are unlikely to reliably take such precautions. A review of 84 stethoscopes showed that the median bacteria colony count dropped to 4 CFU from 34.5 CFU prior to being cleaned with the hand sanitizer. After cleaning with the alcohol wipe, the median colony count was zero CFU.

Patients using illicit drugs are three times more likely to acquire MRSA, compared with patients who do not use such drugs, according to this study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Kristen M. Kreisel of the University of Maryland and colleagues studied 300 patients with bacteremia caused by S. aureus at four Veterans Affairs medical centers, comparing the incidence of USA300 MRSA bacteremia and other S. aureus strains for those who had used illicit drugs and those who had not. The researchers found that the 7 percent of the cohort who were illicit drug users were three times more likely to have USA300 MRSA bacteremia.

Research led by investigators at the University of Illinois at Chicago has found that the standards for detecting and treating drug-resistant staph infections varies from hospital to hospital, but the majority comply with national guideline recommendations. The study, which was funded by a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacist, employed a 61-question survey that was sent to pharmacy directors at 263 acute care hospitals in the U.S. to discover policies and practices in regards to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Of the 102 that responded, 43 percent reported a standard procedure for screening patients for the bacteria.

A study led by researchers at the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Greifswald, Germany, has confirmed previous research that asserted bacterial migration through unnoticed microperforations in surgical gloves occurs in surgery, adding that it occurs frequently. The researchers used an established design to measure bacterial migration from the operating site through a punctured glove, and they reported that in a consecutive series of 20 procedures, microperforations were discovered on the outer surgical glove 10 percent of the time in a median wearing duration of 100 minutes, and perforations were found in 81 percent of cases on the nondominant hand.

Jonathan S. Dordick of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and colleagues have developed a nanoscale coating for surgical equipment, hospital walls and other surfaces that safely rids the surface of MRSA.  100 percent of MRSA in solution was killed within 20 minutes of contact with a surface painted with latex paint laced with the coating. The coating is toxic only to MRSA. It does not rely on antibiotics, nor does it leach chemicals into the environment.

Direct observation cannot be considered the gold standard for assessing hand hygiene, because there was no relationship between the observed adherence and the number of dispensing episodes or the volume of product used. Other means to monitor hand hygiene adherence, such as electronic devices and measurement of product usage, should be considered.