Nosocomial outbreak due to a multiresistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa P12: efficacy of cefepime-amikacin therapy and analysis of beta-lactam resistance.

ABSTRACT: Over a 3-year period, 67 patients of the Hospital of Pau (Pau, France), including 64 patients hospitalized in the adult intensive care unit (ICU), were colonized and/or infected by strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa P12, resistant to all potentially active antibiotics except colistin. Most patients were mechanically ventilated and presented respiratory tract infections. Since cefepime and amikacin were the least inactive antibiotics by MIC determination, all ICU patients were treated with this combination, and most of them benefited. Cefepime-amikacin was found highly synergistic in vitro. Ribotyping and arbitrary primer-PCR analysis confirmed the presence of a single clonal isolate. Isoelectrofocusing revealed that the epidemic strain produced large amounts of the chromosomal cephalosporin

SUBMITTER: Dubois V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC88091 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature