Study outlines risk of treatment-resistant infection following facelift surgery

About one-half percent of patients undergoing facelift surgery at one outpatient surgical center between 2001 and 2007 developed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, according to a report in the March/April issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

MRSA is now a leading cause of infections at surgical sites and in skin and soft tissues, according to background information in the article. It is much more virulent than other forms of staph infection, spreads through tissue more rapidly, is more difficult to control and causes infections that are more expensive to treat and are associated with higher death rates.

Richard A. Zoumalan, M.D., of Lennox Hill–Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital and New York University School of Medicine, New York, and David B. Rosenberg, M.D., also of Lennox Hill–Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital, reviewed the charts of 780 patients who underwent facelifts between 2001 and 2007. Of those, five (0.6 percent) developed surgical site infections, and four of those (0.5 percent of the total) tested positive for MRSA. All of the infections occurred in 2006.

“The high proportion of MRSA infections compared with other pathogens is likely attributable to a combination of factors,” the authors write. MRSA is an aggressive pathogen more likely to complicate surgical sites, and the antibiotic typically prescribed following surgery is effective against other types of bacteria. “For surgical site infections, the facial plastic surgeon should have a high suspicion for MRSA as the causative pathogen,” they continue.