hospital infections They pose a serious health problem mainly for two reasons. On the one hand, since they usually occur in patients with the immune system weakened, whether due to health problems or Surgical intervention recent. And on the other hand, as they become more and more bacterial resistance, so dealing with them can be very difficult. There are many studies on this topic. Some point to fungus as being responsible for this type of condition, although most point more broadly to superbugs that thrive on hospital surfaces. However, according to research conducted by scientists at a US hospital, the culprits may be much closer than we think.
These researchers explained in an article for Talk that a significant proportion of hospital infections come no more and no less than from ourselves. microbiota. Humans live with millions of microorganisms distributed throughout the body. Skin, digestive system, genitals or nose. These are some of the places most populated by generally harmless bacteria, fungi and viruses that are even good for us. For example, they can help us digest food, protect us from other, more dangerous microorganisms, or act as a barrier against external physical aggression.
However, in certain situations they can also turn against us. It appears that hospital-acquired infections are one of these specific situations. This may seem like a serious problem; But to a certain extent this is good news.
The role of microbiota in nosocomial infections
To conduct their research, these scientists focused on surgical site infection, one of the most common nosocomial infections. This is especially striking since advances in disinfection techniques have greatly improved the incidence of other events of this type, but surgical site infections are not improving. It is assumed that they occur in 1 out of 30 interventions and in many cases they become quite complex.
In particular, spine surgery In this sense, they are among the most problematic. Therefore, this study involved 204 patients who were about to undergo one of these surgeries. Skin, nose and stool samples were taken from all of them to study the composition. microbiota of the skin, nose and digestive tract.
Analysis of the genome of these bacteria showed something very interesting. back skin. And the bacterial population in the upper part of the nose was much more similar to the population in the nose than in the lower back.
Subsequently, when analyzing cases of hospital infections that occurred after the intervention, it was found that 86% bacteria The presence in the infected area was consistent with that on the patient’s own skin. Besides, 59% They were resistant to the antibiotic, which is administered prophylactically before surgery.
The importance of advances in sequencing techniques.
Previous studies of this type have focused on a single species of bacteria. Usually he was chosen Staphylococcus aureus, as they are very common in hospital-acquired infections. In addition, there are more and more cases of antibiotic-resistant bacteria of this species. Unfortunately this left many unexplored infections.
Now these scientists have taken advantage of advances in sequencing techniques to simultaneously study large numbers of bacterial species, as well as their antibiotic resistance genes. This allowed the authors to gain a much more specific understanding of the situation.
What is all this for?
Understanding that a significant portion of hospital infections originate from the microbiota of patients is good news. There will be no more need to manage broad spectrum antibiotic before surgery and wait to see what happens.
In this way treatment can be carried out much more personalized, having previously analyzed the bacteria on the patient’s skin and their antibiotic resistance genes. In the end, they do not acquire these resistances in the hospital, but rather, they have already brought them from there.
Perhaps this research will finally reduce the incidence of surgical site infections.
Source: Hiper Textual
