Limit patient screening for infection, study says

"Overall, our real-life trial did not show an added benefit for widespread rapid screening on admission compared with standard MRSA control alone in preventing (hospital) MRSA infections in a large surgical department"

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Screening all incoming hospital patients for a dangerous drug-resistant staph infection and isolating those infected did not curtail its spread, and proved costly, Swiss researchers said on Tuesday.

Some hospitals and a few U.S. states have called for the controversial approach of testing every incoming patient for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA, which was blamed for an estimated 19,000 U.S. deaths in 2005.

But a 1-1/2-year study at the University of Geneva Hospitals and Medical School, where MRSA has occasionally been a problem, found screening did not reduce the number of patients who caught the infection during their hospital stays. Read more