Mrsa Treatment

Infection from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is treatable. It is usually treated with antibiotics, or, if there is a skin boil or abscess, the only necessary treatment may be to drain it. This is only if the skin infection has not spread.

Treating MRSA with antibiotics can be tricky. MRSA is resistant to some antibiotics. "It actually has the machinery to defy all β -lactam antibiotics, such as penicillins and cephalosporins and carbapenems". Other antibiotics do work. Lab tests determine what antibiotic to take. "Bactrim and vancomycin are often the first drugs used". Vancomycin is over 50 years old and has the cure rates for patients around 63% for endocarditis, 75% for pneumonia, and 90% for wound infections. However, "vancomycin has poorer tissue penetration, especially reported for lung tissue." Lung and blood infections are more difficult to treat. "Other options are clindamycin, minocycline, Tygacil, Cubicin, Zyvox, and Synercid".

Antibiotic treatment involves continuous periodic use of medication over a certain period of time. If the treatment is haltered, "some of the staph bacteria may survive. These survivors then have the potential to become resistant to the antibiotic". New types of antibiotics must be developed to kill the strengthened bacteria, but very few have been created over the past few decades of modern science.