Skin infections, abscesses that are often
linked to an staphylococcus infection have become a growing
problem in doctor's offices and emergency rooms across the
nation, with the number of cases doubling in eight years, a new
study reveals. This is believed to signal an increase in the
tough-to-fight bug known as community associated methiciline-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus, or CA-MRSA.
MRSA grabbed widespread publicity in the East Bay in USA last
fall when several junior high and high school students became
infected. Crews scrubbed down campuses as nervous parents
flooded school officials with phone calls.
In a study published Monday in the Archives of Internal
Medicine, researchers from UC San Francisco looked at patient
visits nationwide for skin infections from 1997 to 2005. They
discovered that the number of people who went to a doctor's
office or hospital emergency room because of a skin abscess or
cellulites rose from 4.6 million to 9.6 million during that
time.
That represented an increase from 17.3 patients per 1,000
population to 32.5 patients, based on data from the National
Center for Health Statistics.
Abscesses and cellulites are often symptoms of
staphylococcus. Cellulites is a bacterial skin infection marked
by redness, pain and swelling. It is different from the fatty
thigh deposits known as cellulite that plague many sunbathers.
In the past these infections were treated with antibiotics
(flucloxaciline, fucidin, bacterioban, amoxicillin, cephalexin,
tetracycline) that killed the bacteria but now they are
resistant to almost all antibiotics. Most patients infected with
this bacteria now require hospital treatment for 3 weeks using
an intravenous antibiotic called vancomycine.
