MRSA: A Snapshot

While federal law does not require doctors to report cases of community-associated MRSA, efforts have begun to assess the prevalence of the drug-resistant infection.

A study conducted in August 2004 and presented at the 2005 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine meeting in New York sought to determine the occurrence of MRSA among patients presenting with skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI). Eleven emergency rooms around the country participated in the research.

Among people with SSTIs serious enough to warrant an ER visit:

· 60 percent had the MRSA strain of bacteria.

· At eight of the 11 sites, more than half the SSTI patients had MRSA infections.

The authors of the study conclude that MRSA has become the most common cause of SSTIs presenting to emergency rooms in the cities studied.

-- Jeffrey G. Ghassemi