Study on antimicrobial resistance of Enterococcus faecalis isolates among the inpatients from medicine, surgery department, intensive care unit and the outpatients

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the antimicrobial resistance of Enterococcus faecalis isolates among the inpatients from medicine, surgery department, intensive care unit (ICU) and the outpatients, and study on the differences of resistant rates among the clinical isolates. Methods: Disc diffusion test (K - B method) was used to study the antimicrobial resistance, and WHONET 5 was used for statistics analysis; and significant differences were examined by χ 2 test among the rates of resistance to antibiotics. Results: In the period of study in 2001, 1408 isolates of Enterococcus faecalis were collected. Among the isolates, 1152 were from the inpatients of the medicine, surgery, intensive care unit and outpatients, and were 81.8% in total isolates. Most of strains were isolated from sputum, urine and blood of the inpatients in the medicine, drainage, urine and bile of the inpatients in the surgery. Urine and genitals were the most common specimens of patients in ICU and outpatients. The resistance rates of Enterococcus faecalis isolates from outpatients to penicillin, ampicillin and ciprofloxacin were lower than that of isolates from inpatients, the differences were significant (P<0.01), and also lower than that of isolates collected from surgery and ICU (P<0.01) to nitrofurantoin, but there was not any significant difference between the resistance rates of the strains from outpatients and that of the medicine. In addition, the resistance rates of Enterococcus faecalis isolates from the inpatients in the medicine and the surgery to penicillin, ampicillin, high-level gentamicin and ciprofloxacin were significantly lower than that of isolates from ICU (P<0.01), the resistance rates were not any significant difference between the medicine and the surgery departments. Conclusion: It lends itself to be used as an empirical guidance for the treatment of Enterococcus faecalis resistant strains from different departments.