To the Editor: I write to offer a re-analysis of the data presented by Whitby and colleagues.1 They reported a meta-analysis of crude estimates and relative risk of death derived from nine published studies for Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia. They concluded that bacteraemia caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) is associated with a "real increase in risk of death" compared with bacteraemia caused by methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA), with a relative risk of 2.12. However, they failed to explore fully the possible confounding effect of the patients' underlying diseases and treatment in their analysis.
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