Prospective Comparison of the Clinical Impacts of Heterogeneous Vancomycin-Intermediate Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Vancomycin-Susceptible MRSA

Although methicillin (meticillin)-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains with reduced susceptibility to vancomycin (RVS-MRSA; including vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus [ VISA] and heterogeneous VISA [hVISA]) have been linked with vancomycin treatment failure, it is unclear whether they are more pathogenic than vancomycin-susceptible MRSA (VS-MRSA). We prospectively assessed patients with clinical MRSA isolates during a 10-month period to determine clinical status ( infection versus colonization) and therapeutic outcome before correlating these findings with the results of detailed in vitro assessment of vancomycin susceptibility, including population analysis profile ( PAP) testing. hVISA and VISA were defined by standard PAP criteria (area-under-the-curve ratio compared to that of the reference hVISA strain Mu3 [>= 0.9]) and routine CLSI criteria ( vancomycin MIC, 4 to 8 mu g/ml), respectively. Among the 117 patients assessed, 58 had RVS-MRSA isolates ( 56 hVISA and 2 VISA) and 59 had VS-MRSA isolates; the patient demographics and comorbidities were similar. RVS-MRSA was associated with a lower rate of infection than VS-MRSA (29/58 versus 46/59; P = 0.003), including a lower rate of bacteremia (3/58 versus 20/ 59, respectively; P < 0.001). The cure rates in RVS-MRSA and VS-MRSA groups were not statistically different (16/26 versus 31/42; P = 0.43), but the post hoc assessment of treatment regimes and study size made detailed conclusions difficult. The results of the macro method Etest correlated well with the PAP results (sensitivity, 98.3%, and specificity, 91.5%), but broth microdilution and our preliminary RVS-MRSA detection method correlated poorly. All isolates were susceptible to linezolid and daptomycin. These data suggest that detailed prospective laboratory identification of RVS-MRSA isolates may be of limited value and that, instead, such in vitro investigation should be reserved for isolates from patients who are failing appropriate anti-MRSA therapy.