| Abstract/Summary | The purpose of the study was to investigate the qacA/B determinant distribution among 131 clinical MRSA strains isolated from 5 different hospitals in China between 2003 and 2004. The qacA gene and qacA/B gene of the 131 clinical isolates of MRSA were found in 72 (55.0%) and 80 (61.1%), respectively. The prevalence differed among the five hospitals. Results indicate that the qacA/B gene frequency of MRSA in China corresponds to that (63%) found in Europe but higher than the 38.5% found in Asia. It is difficult to evaluate the antiseptic resistance of MRSA because the difference in the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of antiseptic agents for a resistant strain and a susceptible strain is small, and the MIC of antiseptic agents for antiseptic-resistant strains is frequently lower than the user concentration of the agents. In S. aureus, qacA, qacB, smr and norA, which encode multidrug-transporter proteins, have been identified as antiseptic-resistance genes which confer resistance to cationic antiseptic agents. J Hosp Infect. 2008;69:393-4. |