Pustaka Ilmiah Universitas Padjadjaran

Abstrak

Detection of Similar Staphylococcus aureus Strains on Hands and Nasal Tracts of Surgical-Ward Nurses and in Surgical-Wound Infections, Using Coa Gene PCR-RFLP

Staphylococcus aureus is the most important cause of surgical wound infections. Nurses can become reservoirs and transmit S. aureus through contaminated hands, or colonized noses. Alu1 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the coagulase gene (coa gene) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method could detect similarities between 30 isolates from patients with surgical wound infections and 20 isolates from the hands and noses of the nurses in charge (15 isolates from hands, and 5 from noses). Seven distinct PCR products and 12 distinct RFLP patterns were observed, with most PCR products around 600 bp (15 samples), and most RFLP patterns nearing 300 bp. Five of 30 patients (17%) showed no PCR-RFLP similarity with any nurse. Ten of 15 nurses whose hands were positive for S. aureus had PCR-RFLP similarities with some patients. Only 1 of 5 nurses showed PCR-RFLP similarity with some patients. Statistically, the rate of similarity by PCR-RFLP was 0.12 (12%). Nurses, as potential reservoirs, had 12% PCR-RFLP similarity for S. aureus with surgical wound infections. It may be necessary to examine other possible reservoirs of S. aureus surgical wound infection with PCR-RFLP method using the coa gene, to detect the source of nosocomial surgical wound infections.