No Special Risk Factors for CA-MRSA

A person doesn’t have any special risk factors to get community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas, or CA-MRSA, says a U.S. study.

Dr. Loren Miller and colleagues at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center found no reliable epidemiological or clinical risk factors that could distinguish patients with CA-MRSA infection from patients with CA-MSSA infection.

The researchers suggest that in settings where CA-MRSA is common, all patients suspected of the infection be placed in contact isolation and given appropriate therapy until the pathogens are identified.

What this means is that the average Joe or Jane can get CA-MRSA. A person doesn’t have to be special to get CA-MRSA, said Miller. So a physician who thinks their patient with a skin infection is unlikely to have CA-MRSA because they haven’t been to jail or use illicit drugs is apt to be wrong over half of the time.

The findings appear in next Thursday’s edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.