National epidemiologic surveys of Enterobacter aerogenes in Belgian hospitals from 1996 to 1998.

Two national surveys were conducted to describe the incidence and prevalence of Enterobacter aerogenes in 21 Belgian hospitals in 1996 and 1997 and to characterize the genotypic diversity and the antimicrobial resistance profiles of clinical strains of E. aerogenes isolated from hospitalized patients in Belgium in 1997 and 1998. Twenty-nine hospitals collected 10 isolates of E.

Epidemiological typing of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and antibiotic susceptibility patterns.

Over a 16-month period, Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from 102 patients admitted to a university hospital in Liege (Belgium) produced extended-spectrum beta-lactamases. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis of genome macrorestriction patterns with XbaI and antibiotic susceptibility patterns subdivided 39 isolates into eight clonally related groups. Two of them were implicated in the course of this outbreak.

Typing of nosocomial strains of Serratia marcescens: comparison of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis of macrorestriction fragments with biotyping, esterase typing and ribotyping.

Fifty nosocomial isolates of Serratia marcescens, collected in six Belgian hospitals between 1986 and 1990, were characterized by using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) with XbaI. The results were compared with those previously obtained by three other methods: biotyping, esterase electrophoresis typing and ribotyping with EcoRI and HindIII. Macrorestriction analysis (42 PFGE groups) and esterase typing (42 zymotypes) proved to be the most discriminating, followed by ribotyping (28 ribotypes) and biotyping (10 biochemical profiles).

Comparison of biotyping, ribotyping, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis for investigation of a common-source outbreak of Burkholderia pickettii bacteremia.

Over a 3-month period, six immunocompromised patients developed one or more episodes of Burkholderia pickettii bacteremia and/or catheter infection. Vials of a commercially available, "sterile" saline for injection which had been used for flushing the patients' indwelling intravenous devices were implicated as the common source of the organisms. No further cases were diagnosed once the use of this saline was discontinued.

Ribotyping for use in studying molecular epidemiology of Serratia marcescens: comparison with biotyping.

Ribotyping carried out with a nonradioactive probe (acetylaminofluorene ribosomal RNA kit I from Eurogentec, Seraing, Belgium) was performed for the characterization of 139 hospital strains of Serratia marcescens. These strains, which belonged to 11 biotypes and 1 nontypeable group, were isolated in seven hospitals in Belgium between 1986 and 1992. EcoRI and HindIII were used to obtain cleavage patterns.