Hospital based surveillance of carbapenem resistance in multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of Enterobacter and Escherichia coli in Isfahan

The antibiotic resistant of In Enterobacteriaceae bacteria family to carbapenem drugs is continuously increasing. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of carbapenems resistance in multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of E. coli and Enterobacter and to determine their standard antibiotic resistance patterns and frequency of Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) enzyme in Isfahan.

This cross-sectional study, was carried out on 300 clinical samples collected from three hospitals in Isfahan. Antibiotic susceptibility of bacteria was determined by disk diffusion method. In carbapenem resistant strains, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of imipenem and meropenem were calculated by E-test. The resistance rate to 31 antibiotics belonging to 17 classes were evaluated. The frequency of MDR, extended drug resistance (EDR) and pan drug resistant (PDR) strains were determined. The prevalence of the KPC enzyme in these strains was determined by phenotype method.

Totally, 191 strains of E. coli and 43 Enterobacter strains were isolated, among them 151 (79%) and 35 (81%) were MDR respectively. In both bacteria, effective antibiotics were carbapenem, piperacillin/tazobactam, amikacin, cefepime and nitrofurantoin. Five strains of E. coli (3.3%) and three strains of Enterobacter (6.8%) were resistant to carbapenems and the MIC results confirmed these results. Overall 7 strains out of these 8 strains were MDR and only one strain of E. coli was XDR. No PDR strain was detected. KPC enzymes in four E. coli strains (6.2%) and two strains  (7.5%) belonged to Enterobacter strains.

This study demonstrated the high prevalence of MDR among hospitalized patients in Isfahan. This results shows the emergent changes in the level of antibiotic utilization in hospitals.