March 6, 2014

Alex Kecojevic, a DrPH candidate in the Department of Community Health & Prevention, is the first author of an article entitled, “Rapid PCR/ESI-MS-based Molecular Genotyping of Staphylococcus aureus from Nasal Swabs of Emergency Department Patients,” published in BMC Infectious Diseases.  Coauthors on this article include colleagues from Johns Hopkins University and Ibis Biosciences (a subsidiary of Abbott Molecular, Inc.).

The study discussed in this article was conducted to determine the rates, risk factors, and molecular genotypes of colonizing Staphylococcus aureus in 200 adult patients presenting to an inner-city academic emergency department.  The authors found the prevalence of S. aureus and methicillin-resistant S. aureus colonization in a random sample of patients was 29.5% and 13.5%, respectively.  A substantial fraction of the S. aureus-colonized patients were co-colonized with coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) and high-level mupirocin-resistant CoNS.

The authors concluded that determining the molecular genotype of S. aureus during intake screening may prove valuable in the future if certain molecular genotypes become associated with increased infection risk.