MRSA in MT

[briannell]

Montana is behind in this, it is very prevelant here in WA. I am posting because it is serious and people should know about it. MRSA nearly killed our daughter and it has damaged her bone marrow gravely. for those with kids that read these posts, be aware. children don't have fully developed immune systems so they can die from this. MRSA this is easy to test for with a swab of the nose. incase anyone thinks this isn't so bad, we've been treating this since NOV 2003 and our bills are over 300K and still climbing. had multiple surgeries and still may need bone marrow transplant as a result of this disease. the ONLY thing that works is Bactroban ointment if you show positive and synthetic IV drugs (12K a pop). DON"T let them give "traditional" antibiotics they will not work, you MUST insist on Bactroban (glaxosmithkilne).

Rocky Mountain Labs scientists study new kind of staph infection
By JENNIFER McKEE Missoulian State Bureau



HELENA - Montana scientists have solved some of the puzzle surrounding a stubbornly vicious new kind of staph infection immune to traditional medicines.

In a paper published this month in the online version of the Journal of Immunology, Rocky Mountain Laboratories researcher Frank DeLeo and his Montana colleagues showed that the new strain of bacterium seems to have the unique ability to "blow up'' the body's front-line defenses against infection.

"These outbreaks are deep tissue infections that won't go away,'' DeLeo said.


Staph infections are the most common in the world, he said. Most of those are minor, like impetigo or skin boils. But in the last couple of years, a new kind of especially vicious staph infection has emerged called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

As its name implies, MRSA is immune to traditional antibiotics. More startling, some strains of MRSA cause dangerous, lingering infections in otherwise healthy people. These new strains are on the rise.

You expect staph infections in hospitals, DeLeo said, where there's a large group of people already sick and less able to fight off infections. But these new, so-called "community-acquired" strains are different; they are spreading through healthy people who should be able to easily wipe out a common bug like staph.

MRSA has been especially troubling in Texas, where it has caused hundreds of persistent infections in jails, spreading to jail staff and their families. The bug has also shown up in jails from Florida to Los Angeles. In Texas, high school athletes have also come down with the disease. In rare cases, DeLeo said the bug settles in the lungs and can kill otherwise robust people in a matter of hours.

For the first time, Rocky Mountain Labs scientists in Hamilton showed what these strains of MRSA do that makes it so lethal: It seems to explode the very cells sent to kill it, thereby turning the body's own weapons against itself.

Normally when bacteria invade the body, special cells called neutrophils are the first on the scene, DeLeo said. Neutrophils are equal-opportunity killers; they '"swallow'' the pathogen and unleash a torrent of potent chemicals that quickly kill the bug.

But community-acquired MRSA doesn't die inside the neutrophil, DeLeo learned. Instead, the bug appears to blow it up, releasing the body's own weapons and killing surrounding healthy tissue.

In the most severe cases, that can actually kill a person. In milder cases, MRSA causes stubborn abscesses.

The discovery could be the first step to getting a handle on community-acquired MRSA, DeLeo said, hopefully before it surpasses other staph strains as the most common.

"People are getting these little outbreaks in the U.S. and they're getting worried about it,'' he said. "They're definitely re-emerging.''
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[lifeloyalsigmsu]

Montana is behind in this, it is very prevelant here in WA. I am posting because it is serious and people should know about it. MRSA nearly killed our daughter and it has damaged her bone marrow gravely. for those with kids that read these posts, be aware. children don't have fully developed immune systems so they can die from this. MRSA this is easy to test for with a swab of the nose. incase anyone thinks this isn't so bad, we've been treating this since NOV 2003 and our bills are over 300K and still climbing. had multiple surgeries and still may need bone marrow transplant as a result of this disease. the ONLY thing that works is Bactroban ointment if you show positive and synthetic IV drugs (12K a pop). DON"T let them give "traditional" antibiotics they will not work, you MUST insist on Bactroban (glaxosmithkilne).

Rocky Mountain Labs scientists study new kind of staph infection
By JENNIFER McKEE Missoulian State Bureau



HELENA - Montana scientists have solved some of the puzzle surrounding a stubbornly vicious new kind of staph infection immune to traditional medicines.

In a paper published this month in the online version of the Journal of Immunology, Rocky Mountain Laboratories researcher Frank DeLeo and his Montana colleagues showed that the new strain of bacterium seems to have the unique ability to "blow up'' the body's front-line defenses against infection.

"These outbreaks are deep tissue infections that won't go away,'' DeLeo said.


Staph infections are the most common in the world, he said. Most of those are minor, like impetigo or skin boils. But in the last couple of years, a new kind of especially vicious staph infection has emerged called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

As its name implies, MRSA is immune to traditional antibiotics. More startling, some strains of MRSA cause dangerous, lingering infections in otherwise healthy people. These new strains are on the rise.

You expect staph infections in hospitals, DeLeo said, where there's a large group of people already sick and less able to fight off infections. But these new, so-called "community-acquired" strains are different; they are spreading through healthy people who should be able to easily wipe out a common bug like staph.

MRSA has been especially troubling in Texas, where it has caused hundreds of persistent infections in jails, spreading to jail staff and their families. The bug has also shown up in jails from Florida to Los Angeles. In Texas, high school athletes have also come down with the disease. In rare cases, DeLeo said the bug settles in the lungs and can kill otherwise robust people in a matter of hours.

For the first time, Rocky Mountain Labs scientists in Hamilton showed what these strains of MRSA do that makes it so lethal: It seems to explode the very cells sent to kill it, thereby turning the body's own weapons against itself.

Normally when bacteria invade the body, special cells called neutrophils are the first on the scene, DeLeo said. Neutrophils are equal-opportunity killers; they '"swallow'' the pathogen and unleash a torrent of potent chemicals that quickly kill the bug.

But community-acquired MRSA doesn't die inside the neutrophil, DeLeo learned. Instead, the bug appears to blow it up, releasing the body's own weapons and killing surrounding healthy tissue.

In the most severe cases, that can actually kill a person. In milder cases, MRSA causes stubborn abscesses.

The discovery could be the first step to getting a handle on community-acquired MRSA, DeLeo said, hopefully before it surpasses other staph strains as the most common.

"People are getting these little outbreaks in the U.S. and they're getting worried about it,'' he said. "They're definitely re-emerging.''
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MRSA is old news and it's just now starting to get some notice. First of all, I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. I guess with bone marrow involvement, she had probably acquired osteomyelitis, which takes a very long time to treat. Bactroban is useful only for those who have a positive MRSA nasal surveillance culture. However, being a nasal carrier also means that if you get a cut or acquire some sort of infection, you have a great chance of the bacteria being that of MRSA. Bactroban has no other use in the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure what antibiotics your child used, but there's one antibiotic in particular that might cost 40-50$ a day (including the nursing duties required to administer the drug) and that's vancomycin. It's the first line agent for patient's with MRSA and it's old, proven, and cheap. There a a several new drugs that are out that can also treat MRSA, but vancomycin is the gold standard.

The problem with MRSA is that it's now becoming much more prevalent in the community and it's not just something that pops up with an extended stay in the hospital. At my work site, it's ubiquitous among the IV drug user population (remember, Staphyloccus aureus is one of the most common bacteria that inhabits our skin), people with bites of unknown origin (spider, etc), the prison population, and diabetic patient's on hemodialysis.

The day we start worrying more is when VRSA (vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) arrives in an "epidemic" manner. If that happens, then infectious disease as we know it will be one of the prime worries of all people, whether we are healthy or not.

Just to clarify, I have the strongest of doubts that a MRSA infection in the lungs can kill a robust person in a matter of hours. Maybe a virulent strain of Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, or Stenotrophomonas can kill a perfectly healthy person in hours, but that rarely ever happens either, if at all. It kills people who already have a slew of other comorbid conditions.

[briannell]

thanks for the insight. when my daughter caught it she was 5 1/2 months old, no built up immune system. it not only entered her blood stream (bone marrow) she had large masses of muscle tissue cut out of her , nearly lost her leg and it made her prone to secondary infections (parvo) which nearly killed her.

my reason to post is that very few people outside the medical community have ever heard of it. for small children it IS extremely dangerous. for adults i think more of an annoyance.

it is nasty. there are other parents that read this board. and I did say that MT is behind in this. many drugs used by IV are also in the same class as some cancer drugs, hence the cost. bactroban is for adults. I don't know where you work, but we are still at Children's here in Seattle, and because bone marrow is involved, so was the Hutch. MRSA in bone marrow looks a lot like some rarer cancers. it took 6 weeks with Mayo Clinic and St. Jude's to distinguish the damage was from MRSA and secondary (parvo) than from cancer. hence costs are extreme as so was the invasive testing she went through.

just think other parents should be aware of these things. that's all.

[lifeloyalsigmsu]

thanks for the insight. when my daughter caught it she was 5 1/2 months old, no built up immune system. it not only entered her blood stream (bone marrow) she had large masses of muscle tissue cut out of her , nearly lost her leg and it made her prone to secondary infections (parvo) which nearly killed her.

my reason to post is that very few people outside the medical community have ever heard of it. for small children it IS extremely dangerous. for adults i think more of an annoyance.

it is nasty. there are other parents that read this board. and I did say that MT is behind in this. many drugs used by IV are also in the same class as some cancer drugs, hence the cost. bactroban is for adults. I don't know where you work, but we are still at Children's here in Seattle, and because bone marrow is involved, so was the Hutch. MRSA in bone marrow looks a lot like some rarer cancers. it took 6 weeks with Mayo Clinic and St. Jude's to distinguish the damage was from MRSA and secondary (parvo) than from cancer. hence costs are extreme as so was the invasive testing she went through.

just think other parents should be aware of these things. that's all.

Wow! That's really extreme. The thing with MRSA is that if you are immunocompetent, it's not really an issue at all. However, at 5 1/2 months, there's still a lot in development immune system-wise. When that stuff goes beyond the bone and into the actual stem cells, it's obviously a critical situation. I hope her recovery continues and she gets better. You're definitely in good hands with the Hutch and Children's Hospital.