• Palliative medicine · Jun 2020

    Prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms on palliative care patients in a university hospital-bound palliative care unit: A prospective cohort analysis.

    • Tobias Georg Strapatsas, Viola Simons, Beniam Ghebremedhin, Parviz Ahmad-Nejad, and Oliver Schmalz.
    • Faculty of Health, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
    • Palliat Med. 2020 Jun 1; 34 (6): 776-783.

    BackgroundMultidrug-resistant organisms are a growing challenge and burden to patient care. To date, there are only data concerning the prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections. Thus, numbers of other multidrug-resistant organisms can only be extrapolated and inferred from more or less comparable cohorts.AimTo evaluate the prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms on palliative care in-patients.DesignA prospective cohort analysis.Setting/ParticipantsA University Hospital-bound palliative care unit, in which all patients admitted to the unit were screened for inclusion.ResultsIn total, 304 patients were included in this study. The prevalence for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus of 5.2% (95% confidence interval: 2.9%-8.4%), for vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium of 10.5% (95% confidence interval: 7.2%-14.8%), for Ciprofloxacin-resistant-extended spectrum beta-lactamases isolates of 5.8% (95% confidence interval: 3.4%-9.3%) and Ciprofloxacin-resistant Carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacteria of 0.3% (95% confidence interval: 0%-1.3%) was calculated. Except for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, patients carrying a multidrug-resistant organism had a significant longer duration of hospitalization. Median length of stay was 12 days (interquartile range: 14.5, no multidrug-resistant organisms), 14.5 days (interquartile range: 15, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), 21 days (interquartile range: 16.5, vancomycin-resistant enterococci), 22 days (interquartile range: 20.75, Ciprofloxacin-resistant-extended spectrum beta-lactamases) and 32 days (interquartile range: 22.00) for patients carrying two organisms.ConclusionThere is a high prevalence of all multidrug-resistant organisms within the hospitalized palliative care patients. However, the multidrug-resistant organisms do not seem to impact the survival within this cohort. Further studies should evaluate additional end-points, for example, quality of life, which are of special interest in this cohort.

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