Link: Athletes’ seemingly innocuous superficial skin infection may actually be CA-MRSA.
“In wound management … inspect athletes with suspicious lesions often,” but wear gloves when doing this, Dorshimer said. “When it is not healing in a timely fashion … get more suspicious for the presence of MRSA.”
He recommended circling and measuring suspicious lesions and re-measuring them every day to see if they have grown. To encourage draining, cover wounds with warm compresses or open them surgically or with a scalpel. Then manage the athlete with oral or timed intravenous antibiotics, Dorshimer said
The antibiotics prescribed should be dictated by the organism’s susceptibility profile from culture results, according to the CDC Web site. Among antibiotics indicated for CA-MRSA, Bactrim (sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim) has shown effectiveness and some evidence suggests chlorhexidine baths alone or in combination with other treatments can help decrease skin carriage, Weber said.
