Pseudomonas in a Hospitalized Patients: The Notorious Nosocomial Pathogen

Background: Pseudomonas spp. is one of the major threat of nosocomial infections in hospitalized patients due to combination of various virulence factors and weakened host defense. Even more problematic is the development of resistance during the course of therapy, a complication which has been shown to double the length of hospitalization and overall cost of patient care So, it is important to know prevalence of Pseudomonas spp.in various clinical infections. Methods: This hospitalized based prospective study includes 250 Pseudomonas isolates subjected to identification by microscopy, culture, speciation and Antibiotic Sensitivity tests with standard guidelines. Results: In this study out of 2051 clinical samples, the most common was E. coli (38.23%), followed by Klebsiella (15.94%) and 250 (12.19%) Pseudomonas spp. were isolated. Of them,233 were of P. aeruginosa,141(56.4%) were from pus. Diabetes mellitus and post operative infections each 33(13.2%) were the most commonly known predisposing factors for patients from whom Pseudomonas were isolated, P. aeruginosa isolates were most resistant to Piperacillin (78%) while least resistant to Meropenem and Imipenem with resistance of 28% and 22% respectively. Conclusion: The study underlines the importance of preventing the spread of the resistant bacteria. For this, it is critically important to have strict antibiotic policies while surveillance programmes for multidrug resistant organisms and infection control procedures need to be implemented. In the meantime, it is desirable that the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of Pseudomonas in specialized clinical units to be continuously monitored and the results readily made available to clinicians so as to minimize the resistance.