Bacteriological profile and antimicrobial resistance pattern among patients with sepsis: A retrospective cohort study

As the susceptibility pattern of different pathogens varies among different settings, the evaluation of appropriate clinical diagnosis and timely initiation of the empirical antibiotic treatment based on the local susceptibility data is crucial in the management of sepsis.

A retrospective study was conducted among adult patients with sepsis at a charitable hospital in Mangaluru. The essential details such as patient demographics, culture specimens, organisms, resistance/susceptibility pattern, laboratory data, empirical therapy and clinical outcomes were collected from the medical records. Descriptive statistics were used in analysing the data.

A total of 425 patients diagnosed with sepsis during the study period were screened to meet the sample size of 373 positive cultures, among which 367 (91.3%) samples yielded the bacterial isolates, of which 250 (68.1%) and 117 (31.9%) were gram-negative and gram-positive organisms, respectively. The most common gram-negative organisms isolated were K pneumoniae (19.9%), A baumannii (19.6%) and E coli (12.8%); while Coagulase-negative staphylococcus (14.4%) and S aureus (8.4%) were the predominant gram-positive organisms. The isolated pathogens showed a resistance rate of >50% to the most commonly used antibiotics.

The present study provides information on the prevalence of the most common pathogens and their resistance pattern to different antibiotics, which plays a vital role in the selection and timely initiation of the appropriate empirical antibiotic therapy.