Survival of infectious Pseudomonas aeruginosa genotypes in occupational saturation diving environment and the significance of these genotypes for recurrent skin infections

Background Occupational saturation divers suffer from various skin disorder s, of which skin infections are the most serious and frequent. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the microbe most often isolated. Methods P. aeruginosa isolates from 292 skin infections in operational satu ration divers and about 800 isolates from occupational saturation diving sy stems have been collected during the period 1986 to 1998. Genotyping of the isolates has been performed by using restriction enzyme fragmentation and pulsed field gel electrophoresis. Results Four hundred and seventy-two P. aeruginosa isolates have been analy zed of which 181 originate from skin infections in divers. Ninety-seven sig nificantly different P. aeruginosa genotypes have been defined. Some of the se genotypes are solely found from skin infections, some solely from the sa turation environment and about 25% were found both from infections and from the saturation environment. Eight frequent infectious genotypes have been identified and these are shown to be present over several years, both in in fections and in the saturation environment. Conclusions The study suggests that skin infections in occupational saturat ion divers are commonly caused by environmental strains. Am. J. Ind. Med. 3 7.493-500, 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.