A study on Clinico-Epidemiological Profile of Bacterial infections in Intensive care unit and its implications on empiric therapy

To study the bacteriological profile of infections in patients admitted to ICU and to determine the antibiotic susceptibility patterns of the bacterial isolates. This study was done as Prospective study of 2 months period with a study population of patients admitted to Intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital.

Selection criteria for this study was with an inclusion criteria of patients admitted to ICU for various reasons and developing infection within 48 hours of admission and the exclusion criteria was patients admitted to ICU and not developing infection and patients admitted to ICU with an already existing infection. All the samples were processed as per standard microbiology guidelines.

Gram negative bacilli were predominant with 73.35% as compared to Gram positive cocci of 9.97% of the total aerobic bacteria grown from various samples of patients admitted in Intensive care unit. Escherichia coli were more common with 26.67% of the total bacteria isolated. This was followed by Acinetobacter species 16.67%, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 16.67%, Klebsiella pneumoniae 6.67% and Enterobacter species 6.67%. Among the Gram positive cocci, Staphylococcus aureus was more commonly isolated with 16.67% followed by Enterococcus species 6.67% and Streptococcus species 3.30%. Antibiotic resistance was observed by most bacteria to Penicillins, third generation Cephalosporins, Fluoroquinolones like Ciprofloxacin, Cotrimoxazole.

Multi-drug resistance is a major hurdle in treating patients admitted to ICU setting in a hospital. Regular surveillance of antibiotic susceptibility patterns is very important for setting orders to guide the clinician in choosing empirical or directed therapy of infected patients.