{"doi":"10.1093/jpids/piab014","title":"<i>Spa</i> Typing of <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit During Routine Surveillance","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Staphylococcus aureus protein A (spa) typing can be used to expand characterization of the epidemiology of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). METHODS: From January 2017 to June 2018, twice-monthly surveillance for S. aureus was performed in an academically affiliated NICU. Decolonization of infants colonized with S. aureus included chlorhexidine gluconate bathing and/or mupirocin for those with mupirocin-susceptible strains. Spa typing and mupirocin-resistance testing were performed. Demographic and clinical characteristics were compared between infants colonized with MSSA vs MRSA and infants with and without the most common MSSA spa type, MSSA-t279. RESULTS: Overall, 14% and 2% of 1556 hospitalized infants had positive surveillance cultures for MSSA and MRSA, respectively. Thirty-six infants harbored unique MSSA spa types, 5 infants harbored unique MRSA spa types, and 30 MSSA and 6 MRSA spa types were identified in ≥2 infants. No outbreaks were identified during the study period. MSSA-t279 was isolated from 3% of infants and largely detected from infants hospitalized in one section of the NICU; 96% of t279 isolates were mupirocin resistant. Infection rates, length of hospitalization, and mortality were similar among infants initially colonized with t279 vs other MSSA spa types. CONCLUSIONS: The MSSA colonization burden was 5-fold larger than that of MRSA. Numerous unique spa types were identified. The most common spa type, MSSA-t279, was not associated with increased morbidity or mortality but was mupirocin resistant and associated with clustered NICU beds. This suggests potential transmission from the environment, shared staff, and/or workflow issues requiring further study. Other decolonization strategies for S. aureus in the NICU are needed.","journal":"Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society","year":2021,"id":205875,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9314,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":789701,"name":"Alexandra Hill‐Ricciuti","orcid":"0000-0003-2411-2712","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":789702,"name":"Nicole Kelly","orcid":"0000-0002-0230-5786","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":789703,"name":"Maria Messina","orcid":"0000-0003-3999-3372","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":481455,"name":"Daniel A. Green","orcid":"0000-0002-2394-1319","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":783660,"name":"Wenjing Geng","orcid":"0000-0001-7843-9652","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":281545,"name":"Medini K. Annavajhala","orcid":"0000-0002-9229-8849","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":239746,"name":"Philip Zachariah","orcid":"0000-0002-5080-1573","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":299597,"name":"Barun Mathema","orcid":"0000-0003-2772-479X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246804,"name":"Anne‐Catrin Uhlemann","orcid":"0000-0002-9798-4768","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336119,"name":"Lisa Saiman","orcid":"0000-0002-7231-8451","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":790306,"name":"Emily Grohs","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":28,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:51:37.630221Z","pmid":"34129043","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}