Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:24:28.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Staphylococcal sepsis in a burns unit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

H. A. Lilly ,
E. J. L. Lowbury ,
M. D. Wilkins  and
J. S. Cason
H. A. Lilly
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Industrial Injuries and Burns Unit, Birmingham Accident Hospital, Birmingham B15 1NA
E. J. L. Lowbury
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Industrial Injuries and Burns Unit, Birmingham Accident Hospital, Birmingham B15 1NA
M. D. Wilkins
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Industrial Injuries and Burns Unit, Birmingham Accident Hospital, Birmingham B15 1NA
J. S. Cason
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Industrial Injuries and Burns Unit, Birmingham Accident Hospital, Birmingham B15 1NA
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

An outbreak of staphylococcal sepsis in a burns unit occurred between January 1976 and May 1978. Many patients and members of staff had boils, and a number of patients also developed septicaemia. Most of the boils in the early period of the trial and a large proportion of boils in patients during the later period yielded Staphylococcus aureus resistant to penicillin, tetracycline and erythromycin only (PTE), and were shown to be of phage type 95 in the early period while strains were phage typed. From blood cultures, most strains in the early period were of resistance pattern PTE and phage type 95, but in the later period other resistance patterns were predominant. Strains from burns were usually multiresistant (PTEKNML) and of the phage pattern 29/77, which had been endemic in the Unit, but during the early period of the outbreak there was an increased proportion of strains in burns with the resistance pattern PTE and of phage type 95.

Staphylococcal sepsis has for many years been very infrequent in the burns unit. This outbreak seems to have been initiated by a strain of phage type 95 and resistance pattern PTE, but during the course of the outbreak the endemic strain of type 29/77 and some other staphylococci seem to have developed enhanced ability to cause clinical infections, conceivably by transduction from the epidemic strain of phage type 95.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , December 1979 , pp. 429 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

References

Ayliffe, G. A. J., Brightwell, K. M., Collins, B. J., Lowbury, E. J. L., Goonatilake, P. C. L. & Etheridge, R. A. (1977). Surveys of hospital infection in the Birmingham region I. Effect of age, sex, length of stay and antibiotic use on nasal carriage of tetracycline-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and on post-operative wound infection. Journal of Hygiene 79, 299CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cason, J. S. & Lowbury, E. J. L. (1960). Prophylactic chemotherapy for burns: studies on the local and systemic use of combined chemotherapy. Lancet ii, 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilly, H. A. & Lowbury, E. J. L. (1978). Antibiotic resistance of Staph. aureus in a burns unit after stopping routine prophylaxis with erythromycin. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 4, 545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowbury, E. J. L. (1960). Infection of burns. British Medical Journal i, 994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowbury, E. J. L., Jackson, D. M., Lilly, H. A., Bull, J. P., Cason, J. S., Davies, J. W. L. & Ford, P. M. (1971). Alternative forms of local treatment for burns. Lancet ii, 1105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowbury, E. J. L. (1972). Prevention and treatment of infection in burns. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 65, 25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Selbie, F. R. & Simon, R. D. (1952). Virulence to mice of Staph. pyogenes. Journal of Experimental Pathology 33, 315.Google Scholar
Thomsen, M. (1970). The burns unit in Copenhagen: VIII, Bacteriology. Scandinavian Journal of Reconstructive Surgery 4, 126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topley, E., Lowbury, E. J. L. & Hurst, L. (1951). Bacteriological control of aureomycin therapy. Lancet i, 87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wickman, K. (1970). Studies on Burns. XIV: Bacteriology II. Acta chirurgica scandinavica, Supplementum 488, 5–33.Google Scholar
Williams, R. E. O., Blowers, R., Garrod, L. P. & Shooter, R. A. (1966). Hospital Infection: Causes and Prevention, p. 77. London: Lloyd Luke.Google Scholar