Cellulitis

To the Editor: In his review of cellulitis (Feb. 26 issue), 1 Swartz does not stress the effect that the emergence of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has had on treatment strategies for a “usual case of cellulitis” at many centers in the United States and elsewhere. 2 – 4 Methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains circulating among previously healthy persons in the community attending our medical center now constitute the majority of S. aureus isolates, and we have terminated our reliance on beta-lactams as initial therapy for putative community-acquired cellulitis due to infection with the resistant strain — the therapy Swartz suggests. We now use . . .