Determination of oropharyngeal pathogenic colonization in the elderly community.
BACKGROUND
Pneumonia has become the predominant cause of death for the elderly. It is critical to determine the status of oropharyngeal pathogen colonization in the elderly when treating pneumonia. To explore the efficient approaches to treat age-related pneumonia, we determined the status of oropharyngeal pathogenic colonization in the elderly community.


METHODS
Throat swab cultures were used to isolate oropharyngeal pathogens from 706 residents older than 65 years living in the community of Shenyang City. Characteristics of bacterial strains were sorted and identified using drug sensitivity tests.


RESULTS
Results of bacterial identification showed that 265 out of 706 samples were positive, thereby exhibiting a 37.5% positive rate. There were 290 bacterial strains isolated from the elderly community in total, of which 248 strains were gram-negative bacilli (GNB) and 42 strains were gram-positive cocci (GNC), accounting for 85.5% and 14.5%, respectively. There were 158 Klebsiella pneumoniae strains, representing 54.4% of the all GNB.


CONCLUSIONS
The rate of oropharyngeal GNB colonization in the elderly community increases and Klebsiella pneumoniae is the most common strain.
Wang
Shuang
S
Department of General Practice, First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110001, China. drshuangw@yahoo.com.cn
Li
Dong
D
Chu
Yun-zhuo
YZ
Zhu
Li-ying
LY
Liu
Feng-zhi
FZ
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D009960:Oropharynx / Q000382:microbiology*