Introduction. The emergence of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) has left the vancomycin-sensitive E. faecium (VSEfm) strains almost unnoticed.Hypothesis. Molecular characteristics, hospital transmission patterns and clinical impact of VSEfm have changed, and VSEfm is a predictor of VREfm introduction.Aim. We wanted to do a molecular characterization of VSEfm to identify hospital transmissions and links between VSEfm and VREfm, and to investigate the demographics, treatment and impact on mortality of VSEfm bacteraemia.Methodology. VSEfm and VREfm blood culture isolates from Odense University Hospital, Denmark, from 2015 to 2019 were characterized using whole-genome sequencing and core-genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST). Clonal shifts and diversity of the VREfm isolates were compared to the VSEfm isolates. Hospital records were used for clinical data and transmission investigation of VSEfm cases.Results. Six-hundred and thirty VSEfm isolates from 599 patients belonged to 42 sequence types (STs) and 131 complex types (CTs) in several clusters. Multiple types were involved in putative transmission, occurring over the entire period. Twenty-seven VREfm bacteraemia cases were included. No correlation between the VSEfm and VREfm clones was identified. The 30 day mortality was 40 %, but only in 6.3 % of the cases, VSEfm bacteraemia was the likely cause of death.Conclusion. The molecular types of VSEfm bacteraemia isolates are changing and diverse. No direct correlation between VSEfm and the introduction of VREfm was found, but widespread hospital transmission indicates a presence of risk factors that could facilitate transmission of other micro-organisms as well. VSEfm bacteraemia is rarely the cause of death, indicating that 30 day mortality does not reflect the cause of death.
Keywords: Enterococcus faecium; VSE; bacteraemia; infection control; mortality; transmission.