Antibiotic resistance profiles of endotracheal aspirates in intensive care unit patients

Aim: In the patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICU) infectious agents of the lower respiratory tract are nosocomial pathogens that causes severe morbidity and mortality. The aim of our study is to determine the bacterial growth and antibiotic resistance profiles of bacterias isolated from endotracheal aspirate cultures (ETA) obtained from ICU's of our hospital for the last one year. Material and Method: Between October 2017 and September 2018, ETA samples from adult intensive care units were examined retrospectively. In addition to conventional methods, identification and antibiotic susceptibilities were studied in accordance with the recommendations of the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) using fully automated VITEC (Biomerieux, France). Results: Of the 205 ETA specimens from adult ICU's, 113 growths were detected in 103 patients. In ETA, 37 (32,7%) Acinetobacter baumannii, 29 (25,6%) Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 13 (11.5%) Staphylococcus aureus, 12 (% 10,6) Klebsiella pneumoniae, 6 (5,3%) Escherichia coli, 4 (3,5%) Enterobacter cloacae and 2 (1,7%) Stenotrophomonas malthophiliae was isolated. Meropenem and imipenem resistance of A. baumannii was 89.1% for both, whereas it was 48,2% and 51,7% for P. auroginosa, respectively. Colistin and tigesiklin resistance was not detected for all isolates. Oxacillin resistant S. aureus strains were determined as 46.1% (6/13), while linezolid, teicoplanin, and vancomycin resistance were not detected. Discussion: Increased carbapenem resistance observed in antimicrobial susceptibility tests, for the most frequently bacterias isolated from ETA samples in ICU of our hospital, has shown the importance of the antimicrobial susceptibility testing.