[Intraabdominal polymicrobial infection due to antimicrobial resistant anaerobes]

Successful treatment of surgical infections includes both the implementation of careful operative technique and the choice of appropriate antimicrobial agent. Because of advances in the techniques used for anaerobic specimen collection and culture, anaerobic bacteria are now predominantly recovered from a variety of intra-abdominal and post-operative soft tissue infection. Furthermore, some anaerobes including Bacteroides and Prevotella, like some aerobic bacteria, have acquired resistance to the commonly used antimicrobial agent. The underestimation of resistant anaerobes other than Bacteroides in infective sites may lead to incorrect choices of antimicrobial agent for empirical therapy and thus to clinical failures of therapy. Surgeons should be more interested in the polymicrobial infecting flora to improve the clinical outcome of such infections.