Bacteriological study of pyoderma with special reference to antibiotic susceptibility to newer antibiotics

Five hundred and forty-two cases of pyoderma were investigated to study bacterial aetiology and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. Of these 65.87% cases were of primary pyoderma and the rest were of secondary pyoderma. Maximum cases were of impetigo (38.78%) followed by folliculitis (12.92%), furunculosis (2.95%), ecthyma (3.5%), carbuncle (1.5%) and sycosis barbae (0.4%). Secondary pyoderma constituted infected trophic ulcer (18.82%), infected pemphigus (7.2%), infected contact dermatitis (6.27%), and infected scabies (1.8%). Single organism was isolated from 46.9% cases and more than one type of organisms in 65.46% of cases. No organism was isolated in 5% of cases. Staphylococcus (67.34%) was the predominant species isolated followed by beta-haemolytic streptococcus (21.77%). Maximum strains of Staph. aureus were susceptible to amikacin (75%), co-trimoxazole (72%), cefotaxime (65%), chloramphenicol (62%), ciprofloxacin (61%) and clindamycin (61%). There was low susceptibility to cephaloridin (11%), gentamicin (12%) and penicillin (21%). Streptococcus betahaemolyticus was highly sensitive to most of the antibiotics and less sensitive to cefotaxime (7%), co-trimoxazole (11%) and penicillin (27%). Most of the strains were found to be resistant to one or more antibiotics.