Bacterial distribution and drug resistance in respiratory tract infection among geriatric patients.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the pathogens causing respiratory tract infection among the aged people,and analyze their drug resistance to antibiotics.METHODS The sputum samples of the old patients with respiratory tract infection were collected from Jan 2006 to Nov 2007,and the drug resistance of the pathogens isolated by routine bacterium culture were analyzed.RESULTS Totally 3867 pathogen strains were detected among the aged people with respiratory tract infection.The detected rate was 39.3%,from them the Gram-negative bacteric were 67.9% followed by the fungi,which accounted for 29.9%and Gram-positive cocci accounted for 2.2%.For example the Gram-negtive bacilli were resistante to cefuroxime gentamicin,trimethoprim/sulfa methoxazole and ciprofloxacin,but more susceptive to imipenem and meropenem.Staphylococcus were sensitive to vancomycin,minocycline and nitrofurantoin.CONCLUSION Gram-negative bacilli are the major pathogens causing respiratory tract infection among the old patients and highly resistant to a lot of antibiotics,but the fungal infection can not be ignored.The drug resistance monitoring to antibiotics and early bacterial culturing of the sputum samples are very important.