Occurrence of surgical pathogens and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns.

Objective: To assess the occurrence frequency of bacterial pathogens at the Surgical Wards, Casualty and Outpatient Department (OP) of major Kuwaiti hospital and to compare their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns.

Methods: The Automicrobic System (bioMerieux-Vitek) with respective ready-to-use cards were used for identification of isolates and their susceptibility testing. Vitek DataTrac software automatically tabulated the occurrence rate of pathogens or their antimicrobial susceptibility percentage--for defined periods of time and specified patient locations.

Results: The most common organisms for surgical inpatient isolates were E. coli, S. aureus, K. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa; but for blood culture and sputum, by far, the most common were coagulase-negative staphylococci and K. pneumoniae, respectively. E. coli from wounds were less susceptible (for 12-26%) to ampicillin, co-amoxiclave, cephalothin and cefuroxime than surgical inpatient, OP or casualty E. coli isolates. Cephalothin and piperacillin susceptibility rates of K. pneumoniae of surgical in- and outpatients were twice higher than that of respective E. coli isolates.

Conclusion: The occurrence frequency of bacterial pathogens were dependent on the surgical services. Overall, antimicrobial susceptibility rates were high for different surgical subcategories, especially for casualty and inpatients. The lowest susceptibility rate showed the wound isolates versus beta-lactams, except third generation cephalosporins.