This is an 18-month multicenter study to determine if rates of colonization and infection with 2 resistant Gram-positive bacteria ? methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) - among patients in adult intensive care units (ICUs) are lower in ICUs that use an intensive infection control strategy plus standard care compared to ICUs that use standard care alone. The intensive control strategy involves: (1) identifying patients who are colonized with MRSA or VRE by the use of prospective surveillance cultures of the anterior nares (for MRSA) and stool or perianal area (for VRE); (2) Universal Gloving until the patients are discharged or their surveillance culture results shoe they are not colonized with MRSA or VRE; and (3) Contact Precautions during care of patients who are colonized with MRSA or VRE. Nineteen ICU sites distributed throughout the US are enrolled in the study. Surveillance cultures for the intensive control populations are collected on all patients at the time of admission to the ICU, weekly during their ICU stay, and at the time of discharged. All specimens are processed in the Clinical Center Microbiology Lab. Specimens are screened for MRSA or VRE using an enrichment broth technique and selective agar culture methods, and the resistance genes are detected by PCR. The study will be completed in September 2006 and the data analysis will continue to the end of the year. During the first 16 months of the study, 47,899 specimens were processed ? 23,728 anterior nares swabs for MRSA and 24,171 perianal/stool swabs for VRE. A total of 3,047 nares swabs were positive for MRSA (12.8%) and 5,776 perianal/stool swab for VRE (24.0%). The incidence of VRE and MRSA colonization varied for each ICU and from month to month. All isolates of MRSA and VRE have been stored at -80 C for future studies, such as characterization of the resistance genes, assessment of resistance to other antibiotics (e.g., vancomycin resistance in MRSA), and epidemiologic analysis for strain to strain differences. Additional studies have been initiated to compare culture techniques with direct detection of resistant bacteria by nucleic acid amplification techniques.
