Abstract
Worldwide, an estimated 2 billion healthy people carry Staphylococcus aureus and of these, up to 53 million are thought to carry MRSA. With emergence of MRSA, it has received even more attention; because of MRSA bacteremia causes high morbidity and mortality. The therapeutic options are limited to the use of glycopeptide and linezolid in treating MRSA bacteremia. MRSA bacteremic patients are more critical to manage and timely introduction of antibiotics is life-saving.
Elucidate the prevalence of MRSA bacteremia in different units of Teaching Hospital, Anuradhapura, (THA) Sri Lanka and assess the clinical characteristics and associated mortality related to timely introduction of vancomycin therapy.
The data on MRSA bacteremia which were obtained from THA, for the period of March 2012 to December 2013 were statically analyzed emphasizing the unit wise prevalence, severity and comorbidity and timely introduction of vancomycin therapy.
The laboratory records of total 13260 blood cultures were analyzed. Of those, MRSA bacteremia was detected in 61 cultures (9.3%). The highest prevalence of MRSA bacteremia was observed in the nephrology unit. The survival rate of the patients when the vancomycin therapy started before 24 h of receiving the blood culture report was 94.9 % and in the instances of the treatment started after 24 h of blood culture report, the survival rate decreased down to 50%. High PITTS score (p
Key words: MRSA, Bacteremia, Vancomycin, Timely introduction
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