Prevalence of LRTI in Patients Presenting with Productive Cough and Their Antibiotic Resistance Pattern

To find out the prevalence of Lower Respiratory Tract Infection (LRTI) such as bacterial, fungal, mycobacterial infections etc. in patients with productive cough of duration less than 15 days and to rule out the patients having previous history of tuberculosis or having treatment of tuberculosis.

Outdoor and Indoor patients of Department of Medicine and Chest & TB, SRG hospital and Jhalawar Medical College, Jhalawar were included. After sample collection the specimens were sent to the Microbiology department, for processing of Gram staining, Acid fast staining, KOH mount and bacteriological culture and sensitivity.

A total of 200 samples were obtained from the outpatient and inpatient Department of Medicine and Chest & TB of which 66% were male and 34% were female. Seventy seven percent of samples were culture positive for both single pathogen and mixed infection of which 56.5% were male and 20.5% were female as males are more at risk for LRTI. Klebsiella pneumoniae was the most prevalent pathogen (71/193), followed by coagulase positive Staphylococci i.e. COPS (43/193). More resistant pattern was found in coagulase negative Staohylococci (CONS) showed 61.11% Methicillin Resistant Staohylococci (MRS) incidence compared to 41.86% in COPS, also regarding Extended Spectrum Beta Lactamase (ESBL) production Escherichia coli showed incidence of 36.36% as compared to other gram negative bacilli. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the most resistant organism found based on the antibiotic susceptibility pattern while Proteus mirabilis was the most sensitive organism.

Lower respiratory tract infections can spread easily among community and indiscriminate use of antibiotics contributes to their therapeutic failure. Area-wise studies on antimicrobial susceptibility profiles are essential to guide policy on the appropriate use of antibiotics to reduce the morbidity and mortality and also to control the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in local area.