On 19 Oct 1994, Kathryn S. Black wrote:
>> You are fortunate if you are not seeing VRE's. I am the
> supervisor of a microbiology lab in a 300 bed community
> hospital and our rate is currently about 6%. Believe me,
> a lot of people are very concerned.
I understand that VRE is very troublesome, but it is not 40%, probably
not even 10%. It should also be remembered that enterococci is an
organism of often uncertain pathogenicity. So we have a relatively
uncommon organism semi-widespread with opportunistic pathogenicity, and a
very rare, very localized MDR TB. This does not the end of an era make.
What it really points out to me is the need for some kind of
susceptibility trend tracking system that gets data from around the
country, instead of a few major urban centers.
Another example, betalactamase on enterococci. I know a lot of people
doing routine testing but not finding any. We tried to find some and
could not. Again, the publications of a few labs is driving a lot of
unecessary workup elsewhere.
Bob Morrell
