Staphylococcal Pneumonia

Excerpt

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a pathogen that has been published in the literature since the 1800s. At that time, it was better recognized as a cause of sepsis and abscess formation. More than a century after the first descriptions of Staphylococcus were written, we now understand it to be at the forefront of many disease processes, one of which is staphylococcal pneumonia. Staphylococcus remains at the forefront of infectious disease due to its enzyme production of protease, lipase, hyaluronidase, as well as its ability to make penicillin binding protein 2A (PBP-2A) through the mecA gene, leading to the staphylococcal strain known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). This escalates its ability to become resistant to previous and current antibiotic therapies.