Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns of Urinary Escherichia coli Isolated from Patients with Community-Acquired UTIs

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most frequent community-acquired infections worldwide [1]. Escherichia coli (E. coli) is the most common uropathogen causing UTIs. Increasing antimicrobial resistance among E coli strains growing the problem of UTIs treatment failures and increased cost of healthcare. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial resistance patterns of urinary E. coli isolated from patients with community-acquired UTIs. A total of 78 E. coli isolates from the urine of 78 patients with community‐acquired UTIs diagnosed in the microbiology laboratory of Shahid Faghihi hospital (Shiraz, Iran) by using the conventional microbiological tests. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed against eight antibiotics by a disc diffusion method. Interpretation was based on Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute criteria. Among all the 78 E. coli isolates, the highest resistance prevalence were against amoxicillin and penicillin which all the isolates (100%) were resistant to these antibiotics. While the least resistance were against gentamicin (16.7%), amikacin (21.8%) and nitrofurantoin (23.1%), respectively. Overall, 60.3% of isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin and 56.4% to levofloxacin and cephalexin. Results showed the increasing resistance of urinary E. coli to commonly prescribed antibiotics. As over 50% of E. coli isolates were resistant to 5 of the 8 tested antibiotics. Therefore appropriateness of these antibiotics in treatment of UTIs should be assessed before prescription. This requires continuous monitoring of the antimicrobial resistance pattern of the uropathogens against different antibiotics.

Keywords:

Escherichia coli , Community-acquired UTIs , Antibiotic resistance , Disc diffusion