Clinical distribution and drug resistance of Enterobacter cloacae

Objective To assess the clinical distribution and drug resistance of 159 Enterobacter cloacae strains sampled from the Second Affiliated Hospital,Guangzhou Medical College,between 2010 and 2012.Methods Of the sputum,urine,pus or wound secretion,bile,blood or miscellaneous body fluid specimens sampled from the microbiology laboratory between August 2010 and August 2012,97 clinically isolated Enterobacter cloacae strains were identified with VITEK 2 Compact,a bacterial identifier,for analysis of its clinical distribution.Drug susceptibility test was performed based on K-B disc diffusion followed by double-disc diffusion test for extended-spectrum β-lactamase(ESBLs).Results Enterobacter cloacae was mainly isolated from the department of respiratory (12.4％),surgery (11.340％) and neonatal (2.06％).Of all specimens sampled,46 (47.42％) were from the sputum and 12 (12.37％) were from the urine and pus or wound secretion,respectively.ESBLs-positive Enterobacter cloacae was the least resistant to imipenem (0％),followed by cefepime (14.29％)and Enterobacter amikacin (4.76％).In contrast,ESBLs-negative Enterobacter cloacae did not yield significant resistance to the aforementioned antibiotics yet were associated with markedly higher resistance rates (1OO％,95.24％ and 100％) of ampicillin,cefotaxime and aztreonam when compared with ESBLs-positive strains.Conclusion Drug resistance surveillance of Enterobacter cloacae,the microorganisms that develop pan-drug resistance,warrants reinforcement for reasonable use of antibiotics among clinicians. Key words: Enterobacter cloacae; Anti-bacterial agents; Microbial sensitivity tests; Drug