Abstract
Background and objectives: Postoperative wound infections have an enormous impact on patient's quality of life and contribute substantially to the financial cost of patient care. The potential consequences for patients range from increased pain and care of an open wound to sepsis and even death in complicated cases could be occurred. Factors influencing the development of a wound infection include host resistant, surgical technique, and the number and type of organisms present in the wound at the end of operation. Many patients who are in the hospital for prolonged periods of time or who have substantial illness, have being increased numbers of resident organisms on the skin. Since a long time ago Staphylococci aureus and most recently vancomycin resistant Staphylococci aureus have shown an important role in postoperative wound infections so the choice of treatment for post- surgical infections requires an understanding of the rate incidence of vancomycin resistant Staphylococci aureus , usual infecting flora, available antimicrobial agents and their susceptibility patterns. For this reason, the aim of this study is identifying the aerobic and facultative anaerobic bacteria of postoperative infections and to determine the sensitivity pattern of isolated bacteria to common antibiotics.
Materials and Methods: Samples were prepared from postoperative wound infections of 40 hospitalized patients in Orthopedic wards of Shohada Medical and Educational Center, Urology and Surgery wards of Imam Khomeini Medical Center of Tabriz during 1379-1380 and were examined by microscopic and aerobic culture methods. Isolated bacteria were identified and susceptibility tests were carried on by Bauer & Kirby method.
Results: Of the total specimens studied 14 (35%) culture were negative and the remaining 26 (65%) had positive results. In 15 cases (37.5%) one bacteria,8 cases (20%) two organisms and 3 cases (7.5%) three organism were obtained. The isolated bacteria in different wards showed different sensitivity pattern to antibiotics. In Orthopedic ward, 11cases of S. aureus showed the highest sensitivity to vancomycin (I=18.18%, S=54/54%) but, in other wards, 4 species of S. aureus were found the resistant to vancomycin and showed sensitivity only to rifampicin.
Conclusion: In view of the high rate of postoperative wound infections specially with vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, strict control measures are needed to reduce the level of infection in hospitals.