Prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility of high-level gentamicin resistant enterococci isolated from urine at a hospital in Pune, India

Introduction: Enterococci are one of the common organisms isolated from hospitalized patients with urinary tract infections. Guidelines recommend testing enterococcifor susceptibility to high-level gentamicin (HLG) and streptomycin. The present study was planned to determine the susceptibility of uropathogenic enterococci to high-level gentamicin in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: Prospective observational research was carried out at a tertiary care hospital for two years on all isolated enterococci from urine specimens. Identification and antibiotic susceptibility were performed as per standard methods. All the isolated enterococci were tested for high level gentamicin ((120µg) resistance and susceptibility to other recommended antimicrobial agents by standard methods. Results: A total of 320 uropathogenic enterococci were isolated and tested for antibiotic susceptibility. The majority of enterococci were isolated from elderly (34.06%) and admitted patients (69.06%). A total of 68.4% isolated enterococci were HLG resistant. HLG resistant enterococci were highly resistant to erythromycin (96.3%), ciprofloxacin (96.8%) and nalidixic acid (97.7%). Enterococci sensitive to HLG were significantly (p <0.05) less resistant to the other antimicrobial agents except nalidixic acid. Only 20.5% isolated Enterococci were resistant to vancomycin. All isolated enterococci were susceptible to linezolid. Conclusion: The study demonstrated high prevalence of HLG resistant enterococci causing UTI in our hospital setting. Compared to HLG sensitive enterococci, HLG resistant enterococci were more resistant to other antimicrobial agents tested. The findings highlight the need for mandatory testing of enterococci for HLG resistance to determine effective antimicrobials for treatment. IMC J Med Sci. 2023; 17(2):008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55010/imcjms.17.018 *Correspondence: Dr. Sahjid Mukhida, Department of Microbiology, Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra, India. E-mail: drssmukhida@rediffmail.com