A Six-Year Retrospective Study of Microbiological Characteristics and Antimicrobial Resistance in Specimens from a Tertiary Hospital’s Surgical Ward

Abstract

Surgery has revolutionized the practice of medicine by allowing the treatment of conditions amenable to conservative medical management with some of them pathophysiologically involving the prevalence of pathogenic microorganisms. On the other hand, infections such as surgical site infections or urinary tract infections may complicate patients hospitalized in surgical wards leading to considerable morbidity, mortality, and increased healthcare-associated costs. The aim of this study was to present the microbiological characteristics and antimicrobial resistance of all isolates identified in microbiological specimens from a surgical ward of a tertiary hospital in Greece during a six-year period. Only specimens that yielded at least one microorganism were included in the analysis. In total, 1459 strains in 789 positive cultures were isolated. The most common sample sent to the microbiology department was pus from surgical wounds. The most common pathogens among all 1459 strains isolated were Enterobacterales at 33% (n = 482), however, the most common genus was Enterococcus at 22.3% (n = 326). Antimicrobial resistance against third-generation cephalosporins was 23% (n = 111/482) among Enterobacterales, while, the rate of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) was 18.5% (n = 60/324) among Enterococcus species and was increasing in the last years of the study. Antimicrobial resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii to carbapenems was 68.8% (n = 11/16), which was lower than the corresponding rate in other wards in Greece. The antimicrobial resistance rates noted herein raise questions regarding the appropriateness of currently suggested antimicrobials in guidelines and imply that a revision could be required. Practicing clinicians should always be aware of local microbiological data that allow the selection of appropriate antimicrobials for the management of infections. Finally, the increasing rates of VRE noted herein mandate further actions from the point of infection control and antimicrobial stewardship.

The Prevalence of Alert Pathogens and Microbial Resistance Mechanisms: A Three-Year Retrospective Study in a General Hospital in Poland

“…In the present study, 31 of 50 VRE were E. faecium. VRE was most frequently isolated from urine samples (22/50), wound swabs (10/50), and blood samples (12/50), as also noted in a previous retrospective study [79]. Interestingly, most enterococci and VRE isolates were detected in patients over 60 years old, confirming that these pathogens often cause infections in immunocompromised, hospitalised individuals [41].…”

“…According to the other authors, VRE infections (mainly caused by E. faecium isolates) were commonly reported in high-risk wards (haemato-oncology, geriatric) [77,78]. In the present study, VREs were primarily isolated in the Internal Medicine, ICU, and surgical wards [79]. EARS-Net data show that the proportion of clinical E. faecium resistant to vancomycin isolates from patients with invasive infections has remained stable in some countries (fluctuations < 1%, the Netherlands); it has risen to over 25% in Germany [41].…”

In Vitro Activities of Ceftobiprole, Dalbavancin, Tedizolid and Comparators against Clinical Isolates of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Associated with Skin and Soft Tissue Infections

“…In the UK and USA, complicated SSTIs (cSSTIs) account for up to 10% of all the admissions to infection units [6,7]. In the University Hospital of Heraklion, the most frequently encountered infections in surgical departments are surgical site infections [8].…”