Antibiotic susceptibility pattern of urinary tract pathogens in Ibadan, Nigeria

Urinary tract infections (UTI) affect all age groups and occur in both hospitalized and non-hospitalized individuals and have serious impact on the socioeconomic life of the individual and the society, and also account for a large proportion of antibacterial drug consumption. Treatment failure has been attributed to increasing resistance to common antibiotics, but there is paucity of data from this part of Nigeria. This prospective study was carried out to determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of uropathogens in Ibadan using standard microbiological diagnostic methods. Statistical analysis was by simple percentages among related variables. Four hundred and nine urinary isolates, 239 (58.4%) and 170 (41.6%) from hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients respectively were studied. Frequency of occurrence of urinary pathogens were Klebsiella spp 171 (41.8%), Pseudomonas species (including Pseudomonas aeruginosa) 81 (19.8%), Escherichia coli 78 (19.1%), Staphylococcus aureus 31 (7.6%) and Proteus mirabilis 31 (7.6%). Resistance to commonly used antibiotics such as ampicillin 97%, tetracycline 93%, cotrimoxazole 98%, and amoxycillin 89% was observed among most uropathogens. Seventy-five to 100% Pseudomonas spp. were resistant to the common antibiotics and also 87.1% and 82.4% were resistant to nalidixic acid and cefuroxime respectively. However, appreciable susceptibility by all uropathogens was found with amikacin 75%, ciprofloxacin 72.2%, ceftriaxone 68.4%, and pefloxacin 64.9%. Isolates from the community showed more susceptibility to tested drugs. In conclusion, widespread resistance to most antibiotics including cephalosporins and quinolones was found among all uropathogens.