Open AccessCommentary: Significance of Staphylococcus epidermidis in Health Care-Associated Infections, from Contaminant to Clinically Relevant Pathogen: This Is a Wake-Up Call!
Author(s) -
Micael Widerström
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of clinical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.349
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1070-633X
pISSN - 0095-1137
DOI - 10.1128/jcm.00743-16
Subject(s) - staphylococcus epidermidis , pathogen , microbiology and biotechnology , staphylococcus aureus , pathogenic organism , staphylococcal infections , opportunistic pathogen , biology , medicine , bacteria , pseudomonas aeruginosa , genetics
Coagulase-negative staphylococci, particularly Staphylococcus epidermidis, have been recognized as an important cause of health care-associated infections. Concurrently, S. epidermidis is a common contaminant in clinical cultures, which poses a diagnostic challenge. An article in this issue of Journal of Clinical Microbiology (I. Tolo, J. C. Thomas, R. S. B. Fischer, E. L. Brown, B. M. Gray, and D. A. Robinson, J Clin Microbiol 54:1711-1719, 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/JCM.03345-15) describes a rapid single nucleotide polymorphism-based assay for distinguishing between S. epidermidis isolates from hospital and nonhospital sources, which represents an important contribution to the characterization and understanding of S. epidermidis health care-associated infections.
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