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. 2018 Jan 22:7:9.
doi: 10.1186/s13756-017-0297-6. eCollection 2018.

Multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter species: a seven-year experience from a tertiary care center in Lebanon

Zeina A Kanafani #  1   2 , Nada Zahreddine #  2 , Ralph Tayyar  1 , Jad Sfeir  1 , George F Araj  3 , Ghassan M Matar  4 , Souha S Kanj  1   2
Affiliations

Multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter species: a seven-year experience from a tertiary care center in Lebanon

Zeina A Kanafani et al. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. .

Abstract

Background: Acinetobacter species have become increasingly common in the intensive care units (ICU) over the past two decades, causing serious infections. At the American University of Beirut Medical Center, the incidence of multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MDR-Ab) infections in the ICU increased sharply in 2007 by around 120%, and these infections have continued to cause a serious problem to this day.

Methods: We conducted a seven-year prospective cohort study between 2007 and 2014 in the ICU. Early in the epidemic, a case-control study was performed that included MDR-Ab cases diagnosed between 2007 and 2008 and uninfected controls admitted to the ICU during the same time.

Results: The total number of patients with MDR-Ab infections diagnosed between 2007 and 2014 was 128. There were also 99 patients with MDR-Ab colonization without evidence of active infection between 2011 and 2014. The incidence of MDR-Ab transmission was 315.4 cases/1000 ICU patient-days. The majority of infections were considered hospital-acquired (84%) and most consisted of respiratory infections (53.1%). The mortality rate of patients with MDR-Ab ranged from 52% to 66%.

Conclusion: MDR-Ab infections mostly consisted of ventilator-associated pneumonia and were associated with a very high mortality rate. Infection control measures should be reinforced to control the transmission of these organisms in the ICU.

Keywords: Acinetobacter; Intensive care unit; Lebanon; Multi-drug resistance; Ventilator-associated pneumonia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Informed consent was not obtained for the purpose of this study as all data emanated from the routine daily work of the Infection Control and Prevention Program.Not applicable.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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