Antimicrobial susceptibility of pathogenic Yersinia enterocolitica isolated in Canada from 1972 to 1990

Abstract

Yersinia enterocolitica has emerged as an enteropathogen associated with several types of human infections that often require antimicrobial therapy, but little is known about the antimicrobial susceptibilities of pathogenic strains isolated from humans in Canada. To determine the present patterns of antimicrobial susceptibility, to identify changes in these patterns that occurred during the past two decades, and to investigate the relationships between 0 serotypes and patterns of susceptibility, we tested a total of 1,105 pathogenic Y. enterocolitica strains isolated during 1972 to 1976, 1980, 1985, and 1990 for their susceptibilities to 22 antimicrobial agents. Susceptibility testing was performed by using a single breakpoint concentration in agar procedure. The results showed that all strains were susceptible to ciprofloxacin and piperacillin, and 98% or more of the strains from each period were susceptible to trimethoprim, sulfamethoxazole, cotrimoxazole, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, cefamandole, cefotaxime, aztreonam, and four aminoglycosides. In contrast, all strains were nonsusceptible to erythromycin, furazolidone, and clindamycin and 90S% or more of the strains from each period were nonsusceptible to ampicillin, carbenicillin, ticarcillin, and cephalothin. Strains belonging to serotypes 0:3, 0:5,27, and 0:8 had different patterns of susceptibility to ampicillin, carbenicillin, ticarcillin, and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. No major difference in susceptibility was observed between any of the groups of human or animal strains included in the study, but nonsusceptibility to tetracycline increased from 0.4% in 1985 to 2% in 1990 in human strains isolated in those years. Our results indicate that between 1972 and 1990 there was no marked decrease in susceptibility to agents commonly used for therapy among pathogenic Y. enterocolitica strains isolated in Canada.Yersinia enterocolitica has emerged as a significant human pathogen associated with several clinical syndromes, including enterocolitis, mesenteric adenitis, focal extraintestinal infections, septicemia, and posttransfusion septic shock (3,5,17). Secondary immunological conditions, including erythema nodosum and reactive arthritis, are recognized complications of Y enterocolitica infection (5). Systemic and extraintestinal infections and enterocolitis in immune-compromised patients require prompt antibiotic therapy, and the agents used most commonly include chloramphenicol, gentamicin, tetracycline, cotrimoxazole, and, more recently, ciprofloxacin (3,7,14).Compared with other bacterial enteropathogens, relatively little is known about the antimicrobial susceptibilities of pathogenic Y enterocolitica isolated from humans in Canada. Y enterocolitica infection is essentially a zoonosis, and the serotypes that cause human infection are also isolated from domestic animals, including pigs, dogs, and cats; wild animals; and the environment (9). In 1990, Kwaga and Iversen (11) investigated the in vitro susceptibilities of yersiniae isolated from slaughtered ...

Antibiotic susceptibilities of Yersinia enterocolitica and Y. intermedia isolates from aquatic environments

“…This finding is in agreement with those of other authors [4,6,171. It has been proposed that low resistance rates reflect the poor ability of Yersinia spp.…”

Expression of blaA and blaB and Susceptibility to Penicillins and Cephalosporins in Yersinia enterocolitica from Different Foods

“…Ozdemir et al ß-lactamases of Y. enterocolitica in Food Resistance to β-lactams is the most common and important mechanism in the Enterobacteriaceae. Y. enterocolitica is generally resistant to β-lactam antimicrobials such as penicillin, ampicillin and first generation cephalosporins (10)(11)(12)(13). β-lactam resistance in Y. enterocolitica, which was first reported in 1975, is due to two chromosomally encoded β-lactamases, BlaA and BlaB (14).…”

Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis

“…In vitro, Y. enterocolitica are uniformly susceptible to cefotaxime, ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, aztreonam, cefpirome, imipenem and meropenem (Preston et al, 1995;Stock and Wiedemann, 1999;Pham et al, 2000). The susceptibility pattern of ticarcillin, cefoxitin and amoxicillin/clavulanate is specific to each biotype or subtype and depends on the extent of elaboration or the absence of one of the two ß-lactamases, enzyme A and enzyme B (Pham et al, 2000).…”