Clinical Features, Outcomes, and Molecular Characteristics of Community- and Health Care-Associated Staphylococcus lugdunensis Infections
Staphylococcus lugdunensisis a major cause of aggressive endocarditis, but it is also responsible for a broad spectrum of infections. The differences in clinical and molecular characteristics between community-associated (CA) and health care-associated (HA)S. lugdunensisinfections have remained unclear. We performed a retrospective study ofS. lugdunensisinfections between 2003 and 2014 to compare the clinical and molecular characteristics of CA and HA isolates. We collected 129S. lugdunensisisolates in total: 81 (62.8%) HA isolates and 48 (37.2%) CA isolates. HA infections were more frequent than CA infections in children (16.0% versus 4.2%, respectively;P= 0.041) and the elderly (38.3% versus 14.6%, respectively;P= 0.004). The CA isolates were more likely to cause skin and soft tissue infections (85.4% versus 19.8%, respectively;P< 0.001). HA isolates were more frequently responsible for bacteremia of unknown origin (34.6% versus 4.2%, respectively;P< 0.001) and for catheter-related bacteremia (12.3% versus 0%, respectively;P= 0.011) than CA isolates. Fourteen-day mortality was higher for HA infections than for CA infections (11.1% versus 0%, respectively). A higher proportion of the HA isolates than of the CA isolates were resistant to penicillin (76.5% versus 52.1%, respectively;P= 0.004) and oxacillin (32.1% versus 2.1%, respectively;P< 0.001). Two major clonal complexes (CC1 and CC3) were identified. Sequence type 41 (ST41) was the most common sequence type identified (29.5%). The proportion of ST38 isolates was higher for HA than for CA infections (33.3% versus 12.5%, respectively;P= 0.009). These isolates were of staphylococcal cassette chromosomemecelement (SCCmec)type IV, V, or Vt. HA and CAS. lugdunensisinfections differ in terms of their clinical features, outcome, antibiotic susceptibilities, and molecular characteristics.