Clinical Challenges and Unmet Needs in the Management of Complicated Skin and Skin Structure, and Soft Tissue Infections

Early Enteral Nutrition is Associated with Reduced Morbidity in Critically Ill Soft Tissue Patients

Soft tissue diseases including necrotizing soft tissue infections are associated with high mortality and morbidity with hospital-acquired infection rates up to 76 per cent. Critically ill patients with soft tissue infections have increased metabolic requirements; however, the effect of early nutrition on inhospital morbidity including nosocomial infection rates remains unclear. We hypothesized that enteral nutrition within 48 hours of intensive care unit admission would be associated with fewer hospital-acquired infections. We conducted a retrospective review of patients with soft tissue infection requiring intensive care unit admission for >72 hours from January 2013 through December 2014 to a high-volume, dedicated soft tissue service. Variables were compared using chisquared, Student's t test, linear regression, and binary logistic regression analysis. Eighty-five patients met inclusion criteria; 80 per cent started enteral nutrition within 48 hours. Twenty-six per cent had a hospital-acquired infection postadmission requiring treatment. Patients started on enteral nutrition within 48 hours had fewer ventilator days (mean 5 vs 12) and shorter hospital length of stay (mean 18 vs 40 days) when adjusted for age, gender, and confounding variables present on admission. Patients receiving early nutrition also had fewer hospital-acquired infections (18 vs 59%) when adjusted for confounding factors (aOR 0.15, P = 0.045). No significant difference in mortality (13.2% early vs 5.9% late, P = 0.4) or for inhospital morbidity when evaluating percentage of goal calories or protein received or time to goal tube feed rate was found. Early enteral feeding is associated with reduced inhospital morbidity in critically ill soft tissue patients, including fewer hospital-acquired infections and ventilator days, and shorter total length of stay.

Resistance profiles in surgical-site infection

Surgical-site infections (SSIs) remain a common complication, affecting some 5% of patients undergoing surgical procedures and can sometimes present a major challenge after surgery with life-threatening septic illness. The appearance of organisms that are often resistant to common antibiotic treatment is of great concern. Staphylococcus aureus is the organism most commonly recovered from infected surgical wounds, and usually contaminates wounds from the patients own skin. SSIs occur despite appropriate skin disinfection, sterilization of instruments, use of gown and gloves, appropriate sterile technique and prophylactic antimicrobials. In fact, it is difficult to maintain a sterile field over time, and most wounds become contaminated throughout the course of surgery. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) first arose in the hospital setting, but have more recently evolved in the community. Such community-acquired MRSA are genetically different and seem to be even more virulent owing to genes that encode virulence factors, such as staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec type IV and Panton-Valentine leukocidin. The purpose of this review is to summarize characteristics of frequently isolated bacterial strains from SSIs. The focus will be on Gram-positive organisms because of their increasing prevalence in SSIs and their high potential to develop resistance against several antibiotic agents, including vancomycin.