Effectiveness of various hospital-based solutions against community- acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Periprosthetic infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be particularly burdensome and difficult to eradicate. One of the measures that infection control officers have emphasized in our hospitals has been the use of various hand sanitizers throughout the hospital. Our objective was to determine the level of growth inhibition of common hand sanitizers and surgical scrub solutions that are used to prevent the spread of community-acquired strains of MRSA. Various hospital and surgical agents (n = 13) were applied to community-acquired MRSA bacteria that had been cultured on agar plates. These different commercially available solutions were incubated for 48 h, and the plates were assessed to determine the level of growth inhibition (0, 25, 75, or 100%). The negative control was a test in which no agent was added to the MRSA culture, while a positive control tested 100% alcohol. Eight of the solutions tested had 100% growth inhibition, four solutions had partial growth inhibition effects, and one solution did not inhibit MRSA. Of the solutions with alcohol, the 62% solution did not kill MRSA, while the 80% solution only inhibited MRSA. Both the 95 and 100% alcohol solutions had 100% growth inhibition. Of the two surgical scrub solutions, only the one with iodine had 100% growth inhibition, whereas the solution with chloroxylenol (PCMX 3%) had only partial growth inhibition. This study suggests that the solutions with high levels of alcohol, chlorhexidine, or iodine appear to better kill MRSA and might best be used to prevent the spread of community-acquired MRSA in both the hospital and the surgical environment.