BACTERIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF SURGICAL SITE INFECTIONS AND THEIR ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY PATTERN AT TERTIARY CARE CENTRE IN KANPUR

BACKGROUND Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) are considered to be the most common and deadliest events menacing the health of patients. Surgical Site Infection (SSI) events are one of the noteworthy healthcare-associated infections and common complication associated with surgery. The aim of this study was to find the incidence of postoperative surgical wound infections in clean, clean-contaminated and contaminated surgeries and to determine bacteriological profile with antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of the isolates. MATERIALS AND METHODS During one year of study, total 833 operated cases were included from different departments like orthopaedics, surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology and all the clinical details of the patients were recorded. For microbiological study, swabs were collected from infected surgical sites and processed according to standard procedure. RESULTS The incidence of SSIs in our setting was 1.8 per 100 patients and the rates of infection were highest in contaminated type of surgeries (60%) followed by clean contaminated (33.3%) and clean surgeries (6.6%). Klebsiella pneumoniae (46.6%) was the most common pathogen followed by Staphylococcus aureus (26.6%), Pseudomonas species (20%) and Escherichia coli (6.6%) isolated from SSIs. Antibiogram of these isolates showed that gram negative bacilli as well as gram positive cocci were resistant to penicillin and cephalosporins. But piperacillin-tazobactam, cefoperazone-sulbactam, imipenem, meropenem, tigecycline and polymyxin drugs were found to be effective. Antimicrobial profile of Staphylococcus aureus showed 75% and 100% sensitivity for cotrimoxazole and clindamycin respectively. CONCLUSION The rate of SSIs observed in this study was comparatively lower, but there is higher degree of antimicrobial resistance. It is very important to adhere to strict infection control measures and maintenance of proper hand hygiene.