Urine Analysis and Determination of Drug Sensitivity Pattern of Isolated Escherichia coli from Urinary Tract Infected Patients

Urinary Tract Infections are one of the most common infections in medical practice. UTI is the common causes of complications, mortality, morbidity and economic loss especially in the developing countries like Bangladesh. Prediction of the agents causing UTI and knowledge of their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns is important for the empirical therapy of UTI.

Aims: The aim of the present study was to isolate Escherichia coli from urine samples of patients suspected with UTI and determination of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of the isolated E. coli to commonly used antibiotics.

Place and Duration of Study: Urine samples were collected between February, 2015 to April, 2015 from a tertiary care hospital located in Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh. The study was conducted in Centre for Excellence Laboratory (CEL), Microbiology Department of Primeasia University, Dhaka-1213, Bangladesh.

Methodology: A total of 288 urine samples were collected during the study period. Urine sample was streaked on Cystine-Lactose-Electrolyte Deficient (CLED) agar, MacConkey agar, and blood agar media for isolation of E. coli. Gram staining and various biochemical tests were performed for confirmation of E. coli. Antimicrobial sensitivity test was determined by Kirby Bauer’s disc diffusion method on Mueller Hinton agar plate using commonly used antibiotics. For statistical analysis, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 20 was used in our study.

Results: Sixty-six (22.92%) samples showed positive culture for Escherichia coli. E. coli was more commonly isolated from female (51.51%) than male (48.48%) patients. Results from antimicrobial sensitivity revealed that, E. coli showed high level of sensitivity to Piperacillin-Tazobactam (100%), Tobramycin (100%), Netilmicin (100%), Meropenem (98.48%), Gentamicin (96.97%), Imipenem (95.45%), Levofloxacin (90.91%), Amikacin (87.87%), and Nitrofurantion (81.82%). This bacterium showed moderate level of sensitivity to Ciprofloxacin (60.60%) and Azithromycin (57.58%) and least level of sensitivity to Nalidixic acid (33.33%), and Co-trimoxazole (22.73%).

Conclusion: Therefore, it can be concluded that Piperacillin-Tazobactam, Tobramycin and Netilmicin could be most effective drugs in the study area for the empirical treatment of UTI.