Characterization of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains among inpatients and outpatients in a referral hospital in Tehran, Iran.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most common causes of a variety of infections ranging from wound infections to urinary tract infections (UTI) in hospital and community. In this study during 3 years we characterized the antibiotic resistance patterns of 491 hospital acquired MRSA and community associated MRSA strains by the guidelines of clinical and laboratory standard institute. A combination of high resolution PhP typing method and SCCmec typing were used for clonal dissemination of isolates. Among all 491 MRSA strains, diverse PhP types consisting of 29 common types (CTs) and 4 single types (STs) and also 2 different SCCmec types (III and IVa) were detected. In addition, 18 CTs were common among CA- and HA-MRSA strains and the presence of all 4 STs was limited to HA-MRSA strains. All isolates were resistant to penicillin and high level resistance was observed against ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, tobramycin and kanamycin and the rate of resistance to most of the antibiotic tested among HA-MRSA was significantly higher than CA-MRSA isolates. Moreover, all isolates showed susceptibility to linezolid, vancomycin and quinupristin-dalfopristin and very low resistance to fusidic acid, nitrofurantoin and chloramphenicol were detected. Our findings illustrated the increasing rate of clonal dissemination and persistence of highly antibiotic resistant CA-MRSA strains in Tehran hospitals, and also indicated the important role of the hospitals as the reservoir of MRSA strains.