Antimicrobial Resistance in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Strains Isolated from Beasat Hospital in Sanandaj, West of Iran

Background and Objectives: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most frequent infectious diseases which is caused by Gram-negative bacteria especially Escherichia coli. Multiple resistance to antimicrobial agents are increasing quickly in E. coli isolates and may complicate therapeutic strategies for UTI. The propose of this study was to determine the antibiotic resistance patterns and the multidrug-resistance (MDR) phenotypes in uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC).

Materials and Methods: A total of 153 UPEC isolates were collected from both hospitalized patients (95 isolates) and outpatients (58 isolates) from March to October 2018. In order to determine the MDR among UPEC isolates, we have tested 15 antimicrobial agents on Muller Hinton agar by the disk diffusion method.

Results: The percentage of MDR isolates (resistant to at least three drug classes such as fluoroquinolones, penicillins and cephalosporins) was 55.5% in the hospitalized patients and the outpatients. Antibiotic resistance to ampicillin, ceftazidime, nalidixic acid and trimethoprim/ sulfamethoxazole was higher than 60%. Meropenem, Imipenem and norfloxacin indicated markedly greater activity (93.3%, 80% and 85.6%, respectively) than other antimicrobial agents.

Conclusions: Urinary tract infection due to MDR E. coli may be difficult to treat empirically due to high resistance to commonly used antibiotics, so, empirical antibiotic treatment should be reviewed periodically at local studies.