Bacterial isolates from burn wound infections and their antibiograms: A eight-year study

Background: Infection is an important cause of mortality in burns. Rapidly emerging nosocomial pathogens and the problem of multi-drug resistance necessitates periodic review of isolation patterns and antibiogram in the burn ward. Aim: Keeping this in mind, the present retrospective study from wounds of patients admitted to burns unit was undertaken to determine the bacteriological profile and the resistance pattern from the burn ward over a period of three years (June 2002 to May 2005) and was compared with the results obtained during the previous five years ( June 1997-May2002), to ascertain any change in the bacteriological profile and antimicrobial resistance pattern. Materials and Methods: Bacterial isolates from 268 wound swabs taken from burn patients were identified by conventional biochemical methods and antimicrobial susceptibility was performed. Statistical comparison of bacterial isolates and their resistance pattern with previous five years data was done using chi(2) test. Results and Conclusions: During the period from 2002 to 2005 Pseudomonas species was the commonest pathogen isolated (51.5%) followed by Acinetobacter species (14.28%), Staph. aureus (11.15%), Klebsiella species (9.23%) and Proteus species (2.3%). When compared with the results of the previous five years i.e., 1997 to 2002, Pseudomonas species was still the commonest pathogen in the burns unit. However, the isolation of this organism and other gram-negative organisms had decreased in comparison to previous years. Newer drugs were found to be effective.