More 'Superbug' Infections Seen in ER Patients
Fri Dec 10, 2004 01:11 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among patients treated at urban public hospital emergency rooms for skin and soft-tissue infections, more and more often the cause appears to be the antibiotic-resistant 'superbug' known as MRSA, new research shows.
MRSA -- methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- is not killed by penicillin-type drugs, so these kinds of antibiotics can no longer be considered standard treatment for wounds and abscesses, Dr. Bradley W. Frazee and colleagues suggest in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Frazee's team at Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, California, obtained cultures from 137 patients who came to their emergency department with such infections.