Role of Staphylococcus aureus Colonization in Burn Patients

Objectives: Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen in burn patients and contributes to mortality, however, the role of colonization with S. aureus in the course of the disease is less well described. Methods: The study aimed to determine the frequency of S. aureus colonization in 80 patients treated in a national burn center in Uppsala, Sweden, during the first ten days of hospitalization in relation to length of stay, number of days before antibiotic treatment started and mortality; additionally, epidemiological relationship and phylogeny were analyzed. Results: A total of 38/80 (47.5%) patients tested positive for S. aureus upon admission, while 47 out of 65 patients who completed the 10-day study period (72%) were colonized with S. aureus. Patients who were colonized at admission tended to stay longer at the burn center, particularly when admitted with more severe conditions corresponding to a rBaux score >70 (p=0.05, R2=0.09). Patients carrying isolates of phylogroup 2 received antibiotic treatment approximately one day later than patients with isolates belonging to phylogroup 1 (p<0.05, R-2= 0.09). Conclusions: The study findings emphasize that screening for S. aureus colonization in burn patients upon admission, particularly in critically injured patients, could prove beneficial in optimizing antibiotic therapy. (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The British Infection Association. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).