Abstract
Background: Nasal S. aureus carriage (NSAC) increases the risk of wound infection, especially in surgery. In our study, we aimed to compare nasal S. aureus carriage in patients who were planned to undergo solid organ transplantation with patients applied for other surgery and healthy individuals who applied for job.
Materials and Methods: Nasal swab cultures of 1425 participants consisting of 433 solid organ transplant patients and 791 other surgery patients who admitted to our tertiary care hospital between 2016-2018 and 201 healthy individuals were included in the study. Nasal swab specimens were cultured by using 5% sheep blood agar reduction method and incubated. The isolates were identified by conventional methods and antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed by disk-diffusion method.
Results: S. aureus growth was detected in 283 (19.85%) of the cultures, and 8.48% of them were methicillin resistant S.aureus (MRSA). NSAC rate was 20.78% in solid organ transplant recipients, 19.6% in other surgical patients, and 15.9% in healthy individuals. There was no statistically significant difference between groups in terms of S. aureus carriage (p=0.315). NSAC rate was 20.35% in all patients who were planned for any surgery, and there was no statistically significant difference in the carriage of S. aureus between the patients who underwent surgery and those who applied for job (p=0.131). There was no statistically significant difference between these groups in terms of MRSA carriage (p=0.473).
Conclusion: In our study, methicillin-susceptible S. aureus colonization in the community was found to be high in both patients who were planned for surgery and in healthy individuals. Patients undergoing surgery are at greater risk for NSAC. We suggest that screening for S. aureus carriage preoperatively and decolonization in the presence of carriage may decrease the incidence of S. aureus infections in patients who are planned for surgery.

Key words: Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, nasal carriage, solid organ tumor, surgery.