By Fran Lowry
ORLANDO, Florida — When patients undergoing spinal surgery swabbed the inside of their noses with a topical antiseptic before the procedure, there was a dramatic reduction in surgical-site infections, researchers report.
“I don’t know why use of this antiseptic has not been more widely taken up. Certainly our results are very compelling,” said Nicholas Flynn, MD, from the University of Tennessee in Nashville. “This may be because there have been no randomized trials.” 
Dr Flynn presented the results here at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Spring 2015 Conference.
“Healthcare-associated infection is one of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States, and nasal carriers ofStaphylococcus aureus make up a good percentage of those infections,” Dr Flynn reported.
In fact, 80% of the people who experience surgical-site infections are nasal carriers of S aureus, he told Medscape Medical News.