Abstract

Sadik Akgun*, Yunus Kucukkaya, Nese Erdogan and Yasemin Zer

ABSTRACT

Background: Blood culture is the gold standard for identifying the causative agent and selecting appropriate antimicrobial therapy in patients with sepsis. It was aimed to isolate the causative agent and analyze antibiotic susceptibility reports by using the automatic culture antibiogram system in blood samples sent to our laboratory between 2014-2018.Methods: Blood culture bottles containing blood samples from a total of 3,153 patients from different clinics were incubated in the incubator for at least five days. With a positive signal, they were inoculated into appropriate media and kept in an incubator at 37 ºC for 24-72 hours. Identification and antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed on the isolates using an automated system. Patient results were reported approximately 8-12 hours later.Results: Of the 3,153 patients studied, 48% were female and 52% were male; 78% were adults and 22% belonged to the under-eighteen age group. It was observed that 84% of the isolates were gram positive and 16% gram negative, and 75% of gram positive bacteria were coagulase negative Staphylococci and 42% of gram negative bacteria were Escherichiae coli. In antibiotic susceptibility, 58% of the isolates were found to be susceptible, 2% to intermediate, and 40% to be resistant (for gram negatives it was 51%, 4%, and 45%, respectively). The highest susceptibility rates were found for vancomycin, linezolid, and teicoplanin (99%, 98%, and 96%, respectively) in gram-positive isolates. In Gram-negative isolates, the highest rates were found in colistin, amikacin, imipenem and meropenem (87%, 80%, 78% and 78%, respectively). Conclusions: Small increases in the bacteria's resistance profiles indicated that it became more important to wait for antibiotic sensitivity results.