[Antibiotic resistance patterns in Acinetobacter spp. strains isolated from hospital environment]

Abstract

Introduction: The Acinetobacter species are ubiquitary germs isolated more and more frequently, Acinetobacter baumannii being currently considered the second strictly aerobic microorganism involved in the ethiology of severe nosocomial infections. Acinetobacter baumannii is usually encountered in surgery and intensive care units, especially in patients with depressed immunity, in which various locations are possible, the most frequvent being the respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections and bacteriemia.

Material and method: The study used 52 strains of Acinetobacter spp. isolated from 1131 biological samples (bronchial aspirat, urine, wound secretion, blood, pus, CFS) obtained from the patients of the Timisoara Country Hospital. Identification of germs was performed using the API (BioMerieux) system, and the antibiotics sensitivity testing was made by disk diffusion testing (Kirby-Bauer), with automatic reading and phenotyping through the Osiris Evolution (BioRad) system.

Results: The study of resistance to beta-lactamines has pointed out the predominance of penicillinase and cephalosporinase producing strains, 55.77% of the tested ones being part of this phenotype. 90.38% of the strains were resistant to one or more aminoglycosides. Of the tested strains 76.93% were resistant to fluoroquinolones, 86.54% to trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole, and only 21.15% to tethracycline.

Conclusions: Among the emerging pathogens involved in the nosocomial infections, Acinetobacter baumannii strains have become, in the past decades, a real health issue, due to the variety and seriousness of clinical symptoms. Through the constant increase of the cases number, and the difficulty of applying an effective treatment, the above-mentioned strains showed a multiple resistance to antibiotics.