To study the clinical and molecular epidemiology of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium organisms causing catheter-related bacteremia in patients with cancer.

Retrospective case-control study.

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, a tertiary-care hospital in Houston, Texas.

Case-patients were patients with cancer who had catheter-related vancomycin-resistant E. faecium bacteremia and control-patients were patients with cancer and vancomycin-resistant E. faecium gastrointestinal colonization without infection.

Ten case-patients with catheter-related vancomycin-resistant E. faecium bacteremia were compared with 30 control-patients with gastrointestinal colonization by vancomycin-resistant E. faecium. Patients with catheter-related vancomycin-resistant E. faecium bacteremia were more likely to have required mechanical ventilation (P < .01), received total parenteral nutrition (P < .01), and had polyurethane catheters (P < .01) inserted in the femoral vein (P = .01). With the use of pulsed-fleld gel electrophoresis, 4 of the 10 catheter-related vancomycin-resistant E. faecium bacteremia isolates were genetically indistinguishable, whereas only 2 of the 30 control vancomycin-resistant E. faecium isolates displayed this same DNA pattern (P = .03).

This study suggests that catheter-related vancomycin-resistant E. faecium bacteremia occurs more frequently in patients who receive total parenteral nutrition, mechanical ventilation, and femoral catheters. (Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2005;26:658-661)