This week has been ludicrously busy on the infectious diseases consult service, throwing me off of my blogging routine.Here is an article that caught my eye in the American Journal of Infection Control. The subject is universal MRSA decolonization with a 5 day course of intranasal mupirocin and chlorhexidine bathing (2% CHG Cloths) in non-general surgical patients. The result was a 72% reduction in MRSA surgical site infections over two years.
This is an important finding. However, I am more interested in the impact of this decolonization strategy on ALL infections, surgical site or otherwise, by ALL pathogens. These data are not reported in the paper.
Universal patient decolonization with mupirocin and chlorhexidine prior to elective surgeries is of greater value if it results in a sustained, horizontal infection risk reduction on similarly transmitted pathogens. That would be really exciting.
