Staphylococcus aureusNasal Carriage and Infection in Patients on Hemodialysis

Abstract

We conducted a five-year prospective controlled study of prophylaxis of Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage and infection among patients in a hemodialysis unit. Carriers tended to have chronic colonization with a single phage type. S. aureus infections occurred significantly more frequently in carriers than in noncarriers and, in 93 percent of the infected carriers, were caused by the same phage type as that carried in the nares.