Importance of postoperative factors in the study of the epidemiology of surgical site infection due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

reported. The meta-analysis of Saint et al. is an early publication that incorporated clinical trials only to 1993, which were also incorporated into the later meta-analyses."' The meta-analysis by Johnson et al. concluded that there is only "fair quality evidence"'" that antimicrobial catheters can prevent bacteriuria in hospitalized patients during short-term catheterization and that there is no evidence for prevention of symptomatic infection. Johnson et al. concluded that the poor quality of published studies and the lack of valid economic analysis mean that further studies are required to clearly define the role of these catheters. The articles by Newton et al. and Karchmer et al. to which Ciavarella and Ritter referred were considered in the systematic review of Johnson et al. As noted in the compendium, several more-recent publications not included in these meta-analyses raise further questions about the effectiveness of antimicrobial catheters.