Changing Staphylococci and Staphylococcal Infections

Abstract

Clinical and bacteriologic findings in about 2000 cases of bacteremia illustrate the changes within the staphylococcal flora in Danish hospitals during the years 1957–66. The phage type complex 52, 52A, 80, 81, usually resistant to penicillin and streptomycin only, regressed with the increasing use of newer antibiotics. It was succeeded by a series of mutually related types of phage Group III, in which resistance to several antibiotics was acquired concomitantly with a stepwise blocking of susceptibility to phage, probably owing to "epidemic" phage activity. The latest members of the series were often methicillin resistant.