Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · May 2012
Active surveillance cultures of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus as a tool to predict methicillin-resistant S. aureus ventilator-associated pneumonia.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia is one of the most common infections in the intensive care unit and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has emerged as a common cause of ventilator-associated pneumonia. We sought to study the performance characteristics of once weekly active surveillance culture of methicillin-resistant S. aureus colonization in predicting the development of methicillin-resistant S. aureus ventilator-associated pneumonia. ⋯ In our study, prior methicillin-resistant S. aureus colonization as ascertained by once-weekly active surveillance culture yielded high specificity and negative predictive value, suggesting that negative active surveillance culture can accurately exclude methicillin-resistant S. aureus as an etiology in most patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia and may decrease the need for empirical methicillin-resistant S. aureus coverage in patients with suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia.