An Exploratory Study of Staphylococcus epidermidis Isolates from Environment and Patient Blood Cultures from an Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

This exploratory study determined the epidemiological characteristics of Staphylococcus epidermidis from near touch sites and blood cultures in one Intensive Care Unit (ICU) between July and October 2009 in a large teaching hospital in Brazil. Five different touch sites around the environment of two different patients were sampled over four days and 24 blood cultures from 24 patients were obtained and analyzed. Isolates from near touch sites and blood cultures were compared by means of the repetitive extragenic palindromic sequence-based polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) and analyzed by the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) (BioNumerics, 6.0). Results found that ciprofloxacinresistant Staphylococcus epidermidis on stethoscopes, bed rails (P < .004), and patient blood cultures indicated similarity (60-65%; IC: 85%). The similarities among near touch sites and patient isolates are unsurprising due to the commensal nature of Staphylococcus epidermidis, however it does emphasize the need for further research into environmental contamination and cleaning.