Clinical and microbiological characteristics of 28 patients with Staphylococcus schleiferi infection

The aim of this study was to analyse the clinical and microbiological chara cteristics of a series of patients with infection by Staphylococcus schleif eri. Seventy-one isolates were recovered from 36 patients between January 1 993 and June 1999 at a tertiary care centre in northern Spain. There were 2 8 patients with well-documented clinical data. Infection was more frequent in men (89.3%), and more than half of the patients had some degree of immun osuppression, mainly malignant neoplasms. Infection was nosocomial in 22 ca ses and community-acquired in the remaining cases. Staphylococcus schleifer i was frequently associated with wound infections, mainly surgical-site inf ections, although unusual types of infections were detected. Infection-rela ted mortality was low. This study highlights the importance of careful iden tification of Staphylococcus schleiferi in the clinical microbiology labora tory. Due to the documented association of Staphylococcus schleiferi with c linical infections in humans, any isolates of this organism should be assum ed to be pathogenic, unless proven otherwise.