چكيده لاتين :
Background and objective: Enterococci have become a significant problem because of their role in surgical wound infection, nosocomial urinary tract infection and bacteremia. Their increasing resistance to vancomycin is being a major medical concern, as the choice of suitable antibiotics in this case is limited mostly to oxazolidine, linezolid, quinopristin/ dalfopristin and a few other antimicrobials.
We assessed the prevalence of VRE among the patients admitted to the infectious ward of Mofid Children Hospital, in Tehran, Iran and evaluated the relationship between VRE occurrence and patientsʹ gender, age and previous antibiotic use.
Materials and methods: During 6 months, stool samples were obtained from the patients hospitalized in the first 48 hours of their hospitalization. Resistance to vancomycin and other antibiotics in isolated enterococci was evaluated by the means of agar disc diffusion method.
Results: 15.5% of isolated enterococci from a total of 161 stool samples were resistant to vancomycin. No relationship between VRE occurrence and patientsʹ age or gender was observed. Neither was any relationship discovered between prevalence of VRE and previous antibiotic consumption. Most of the isolated enterococci were resistant to norfloxacin, oxacillin, cefotaxime, cephalothin, cefepime, clindamycin, penicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, clarithromycin and azithromycin.
Conclusion: Regarding the increasing prevalence of VRE, further investigation to provide accurate antimicrobial resistance patterns for enterococci is suggested, so that effective therapy and infection control measures can be initiated.
