Prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of bacteria in ICU patients with lower respiratory tract infection: A cross-sectional study

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of isolated organisms in patients with lower respiratory tract infections and the antibiotic susceptibilities at a tertiary care center. Methods: In this observational and cross-sectional analysis, 114 patients admitted in the intensive care unit were enrolled. The endotracheal aspirates and bronchoalveolar lavage were collected. The bacteria were isolated and identified, and finally, antimicrobial sensitive pattern of the isolated bacteria was examined. Results: The prevalence of infection was 72.72% in male patients and 27.28% in females. The predominant bacteria were Klebsiella pneumoniae (37.50%) followed by Acinetobacter spp. (36.36%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (7.95%), Escherichia coli (6.81%), Proteus mirabilis (2.27%), atypical Escherichia coli (1.13%), Enterococcus spp. (1.13%), Elizabethkingia meningoseptica (1.13%), Staphylococcus aureus (1.13%), Proteus vulgaris (1.13%), Citrobacter freundii (1.13%), and Citrobacter koseri (1.13%). High resistance to cephalosporins (82.18%) was demonstrated in all Gram-negative bacteria. Bacteria showed susceptibility to colistin (88.75%) followed by tigecycline (83.11%), gentamycin (36.18%), and amikacin (49.23%). Conclusions: As the most frequent respiratory organisms, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter spp. have increased resistance to cephalosporins and susceptibility to colistin followed by tigecycline.