[Susceptibility to antimicrobial agents and genotypic relatedness of enterococcal strains isolated from patients and hospital environment].

The aim of this study was to evaluate antibiotic susceptibility of Enterococcus sp. strains isolated from two hospitals in łódź, during 2005-2006. The second goal was to determine possible transmission of these strains within hospital wards by using melting profile PCR. Enterococcal strains were identified to species according standard microbiological methods. There was isolated 159 strains of E. faecalis, 51 strains of E. faecium and two E. avium, 1 E. durans. Susceptibility to antimicrobial agents was tested by disc diffusion method. None of these strains was resistant to vancomycin, teicoplanin or linezolid. There was high percentage of strains resistant to aminoglicosides, 22% of E. faecalis strains, and 54.9% of E. faecium strains, respectively. Additionally it was shown that 11.7% of E. faecium is resistant to chinuprisin-dalfopristin. The strains with similar pattern of resistance to antibiotics and fenotypic characteristics were genotyped by mpPCR. This technique was useful to confirm relatedness of bacterial strains suspected of being spread within hospital wards.