How Transmissible Is Pseudomonas aeruginosa?
Bonnie W. Ramsey, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics University of Washington School of Medicine Seattle, Washington Although several studies documenting patient-to-patient transmission of Burkholderia cepacia complex among patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) (1) have led clinicians worldwide to initiate aggressive infection control policies, the risk of Pseudomonas aeruginosa cross-colonization among patients and the most appropriate recommendations for segregation and infection control remain controversial. Molecular methods enabling accurate determination of the genetic relatedness of P. aeruginosa strains, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (2) and random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis (3), have been available only since the late 1980s. Accumulating data from several molecular surveillance studies conducted worldwide (2 10) are beginning to elucidate the natural history of P. aeruginosa infection in the CF host. Two molecular epidemiologic studies of P. aeruginosa from large CF
