Isolation, identification, and antibiogram of enterococci isolated from patients with urinary tract infection.

BACKGROUND/

OBJECTIVES

Enterococci, though commensals in adult feces are important nosocomial pathogens. The most common nosocomial infection caused by these organisms is urinary tract infection.

OBJECTIVES

(1) To isolate and speciate enterococci from cases of urinary tract infection. (2) To know antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the isolates. (3) To determine high level aminoglycoside resistance (HLAR) among the isolates.

METHODS

Identification and speciation of the isolates were done by the standard conventional methods. Antibacterial susceptibility pattern was determined by standard disc diffusion method and HLAR by using gentamicin (120 μg) and streptomycin (300 μg) discs.

RESULTS

A total of 150 strains of enterococci were isolated from a total of 2520 urine samples. Out of 150 strains, 95 (63.3%) were Enterococcus faecalis, 55 (36.7%) were E. faecium. A total of 102 (68%) isolates showed high level resistance to gentamicin and/or streptomycin by high content disc diffusion.

CONCLUSION

Antibiotic sensitivity pattern revealed presence of multidrug resistance in E. faecium as well as E. faecalis and resistance among E. faecium isolates was higher than E. faecalis. HLAR among enterococcal isolates was high in our institute.