Doctors issue new treatment guidelines for skin abscesses caused by MRSA

It has been more than 10 years since the clinical battle began with community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and doctors are still grappling with how to diagnose, treat and prevent this virulent form of staph infection, which is immune to many antibiotics. As MRSA cases have increased dramatically over the decade, so have the number of skin abscesses — generally pus-filled boils or pimples with discharge — that characterize these infections. Now, researchers from UCLA have issued updated guidelines outlining the best ways to treat and manage these abscesses. The first cases of MRSA were relatively mild and primarily affected high-risk patients in hospitals and long-term care facilities. But beginning the early 2000s, doctors identified a new, highly contagious and hard-to-treat strain known as "community-acquired" MRSA, which had spread to the general public. This more virulent form of the infection can be dangerous and in severe cases cause necrotizing pneumonia, fasciitis and sepsis. One of the first reports that MRSA infections would become epidemic was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 by Dr. Gregory Moran, Dr. David A. Talan and colleagues at Olive View–UCLA Medical Center. Their research showed that community-associated MRSA had become the most common cause of skin infection among patients presenting at emergency departments and other settings in the U.S. In a new report published March 13 in the New Englan...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news