Occurrence of Ureaplasma urealyticumin in Women in the Northeast of Iran: Characterization of Resistance Trends

The present study surveyed the prevalence of antibiotic resistance among Ureaplasma urealyticum in isolates from Gonabad (in the northeast of Iran) including susceptibility testing for U. urealyticum to different antibiotics.

In this research, a total of 95 vaginal swab specimens were aseptically collected from women who were admitted to the Bohlool Teaching Hospital and Jahad Daneshgahi Center from April 2016 to April 2017. Culture and subsequently antibiotic susceptibility testing were performed according to the Mycoplasma IST 2 kit. Then the cupules were read and interpreted in 24 and 48 hours according to kit guidelines.

In the studied patients, 38 (40.4 %), 12 (12.8 %), and 11 (11.7%) cases were single positive for U. urealyticum, single positive for Mycoplasma hominis (M. hominis), and dually positive for U. urealyticum and M. hominis, respectively. The positive rates of genital U. urealyticum in the symptomatic and asymptomatic groups were 86.8% and 13.2%, respectively. The highest positive rate (42.1%) was found in the 26-30-year-old group. In addition, tetracycline (TET) and doxycycline (DOT) were the most effective antibiotics against isolates, and one strain was multi-drug resistant. The U. urealyticum resistance rates were more than 39% to erythromycin and pristinamycin, and more than 55% to ciprofloxacin. All U. urealyticum isolates with <104 CFU/specimen were sensitive to all tested drugs.

Although the emerging resistance to TETs among our isolates is alarming, these data show that the standard therapeutic regimen for urogenital infections caused by U. urealyticum is DOT, TET, and clarithromycin, leading to better outcomes in most respective patients.