engleski

Species identification and antibiotic susceptibility of clinical isolates of enterococci isolated from hospitalized patients and outpatients in Split and Dalmatia County, Croatia

Objectives: Identification up to species level and testing antibiotic susceptibility in clinical isolates of enterococci collected from hospitalized patients and outpatients in Split and Dalmatia County, Croatia. Methods: Identification up to the species level was made by the Falcam and Collins method (1989) and by API 20 Strep (bioMerieux, France). Antibiotic susceptibility to ampicillin was determined by microbroth dilution, to gentamicin and streptomycin by the agar dilution screening method, and to vancomycin by Etest (AB Biodisk, Sweden). The disk diffusion method was used for testing susceptibility to ciprofloxacin and, only in the case of urine isolates, to nitrofurantoin. Results: From 235 clinical icolates of enterococci, 106 were from outpatients (104 E.fecalis and 2 E.faecium) and 129 were from hospitalized patients (108 E. fecalis and 21 E. faecium). 17.1% of isolates from hospitalized patients and 2.8% from outpatients were ampicillin resistant. There were no β-lactamase-producing isolates. High-level resistant (HLR) gentamicin isolates were 43.4% from hospitalized patients and 11.3% from outpatients, and HLR streptomycin isolates were 56.6% and 32.1% respectively. Ciprofloxacin-resistant and intcrmediate isolates were 68.2% from hospitalized patients and .57.6 % from outpatients. There were no vanconiycin-resistant isolates. Nitrofurantoin-resistant isolates were from 5.9% of hospitalized patients' urine and there were no resistant isolates from outpatient\. Conclusions: E. faecium was the species that was mostly ieolated from hospitalized patients. Statistically significant differences in resistance between hospitalized and outpatients were noted in resistance to ampicillin, gentamicin and streptomycin, but the difference was not significant for vancomycin, ciprofloxacin and nitrofurantoin.

enterococci ; antibiotics ; resistance

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