EVALUATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANT PROFILE AND ESTIMATION OF INTERLEUKIN 38 SERUM LEVEL AMONG PATIENTS WITH RESPIRATORY TRACT INFECTION

Background:The causative agents of respiratory tract infections consist of awide range of Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria.Aim of the study : Assessment of the antimicrobial resistance profile to determine the best antibiotic for treatment and estimate Interleukin-38 serum levels to use as predictor biomarker diagnosis in patients with respiratory tract infection.Materials and methods: The study was conducted at Baghdad Teaching Hospital/ Medical City from July 2023 to March 2024.Out of 110 patients who suffer from respiratory tract infection ,50 patients were included in this study.The specimens were sputum for bacterial isolation and identification ,then confirmation of the diagnosis by Vitek2 .Sensitivity test performed by disc diffusion method .Blood for serum specimens for estimation of IL-38 serum levels by ELISA compared with 50 healthy people.Results: Gram-negative bacteria are the most common causative agents caused respiratory tract infection, represented by Klebsiella pneumoniae (28%),Acinetobacter baumannii (20%) ,Pseudomonas aeruginosa (10%), Haemophilus influenzae(8%),and Moraxella catarrhalis(8%) ,while Gram positive bacteria were Streptococcus pneumomiae (26%) .All bacterial isolates showed high sensitivity to Meropenem and Levofloxacin.The current study showed highly significant increase of IL-38 serum level in patients compared to the control group ,and elevated in the Gram negative more than in the Gram positive bacteria.Conclusions: The bacterial isolates causing RTI showed multidrug resistance to a large number antibiotics which prescribed as specific antibiotics for bacterial RTI treatment.IL-38 was a strong indicator for bacterial respiratory tract diagnosis.Thus, our data express the important vision for both clinical and basic studies for bacterial respiratory tract infection diagnosis.