Antibiotic for Nose Can Cut Infections

Applying an antibiotic to the nose of a surgery patient can often sharply reduce the risk of developing a nasty wound infection on other areas of the body, according to research in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. Doctors discovered years ago that if surgery patients harbored the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus in their nasal cavities, their risk of developing a wound infection was up to nine times greater than those who did not carry the germ in their noses. Treating such infections costs between $5 billion and $10 billion annually in the United States.

Johns Hopkins University researchers reported that applying the antibiotic mupirocin to eliminate the bacteria from the noses of surgery patients could cut the risk of wound infection nearly in half.

Dr. Trish Perl of Hopkins said the findings “carry tremendous implications” for preventing illnesses and hospital infections.