[Respiratory tract fluid microbiology in an intensive care unit].

Objective: to know patterns of antimicrobial resistance of bacterial isolates from tracheal aspirates in an Intensive Care Unit and to evaluate the cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Methods: antibiotic sensitivity test was done. A comparison was made between patients with nosocomial pneumonia reported by infection surveillance team against those reported by the attending physician with the infectious disease consultant.

Results: Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the bacteria most frequently reported with 134 isolates (26 %), 71 were multiple-drug-resistant; followed by Staphylococcus with 122 isolates (24 %), of which 88 were S. aureus with 62 of them (70 %) methicillin-resistant. Enterobacteriaceae, E. coli, K. pneumoniae, E. cloacae, S. marcescens, as well as Acinetobacter sp. and S. maltophilia were occasionally isolated. Candida represented 17 % of the isolates. Three peaks of isolates of S. aureus and P. aeruginosa were identified during the two years of surveillance. There were differences in cases of ventilator associated pneumonia reported by the hospital based epidemiology team and the attending clinicians in collaboration with an Infectious disease consultant.

Conclusions: prevalence of multiple-drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (53 %) and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus (70 %) isolated from the airway is high in our Intensive Care Unit. Enterobacterias, Acinetobacter sp. and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia colonization are low in our Intensive Care Unit.