title: The erratic antibiotic susceptibility patterns of bacterial pathogens causing urinary tract infections.
abstract: Increasing trend of antibiotic resistance and expression of Extended Spectrum Beta Lactamases (ESBLs) are serious threats for public health as they render the treatment ineffective. Present study was designed to elucidate the antibiotic-susceptibility patterns of ESBL and non-ESBL producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae causing urinary tract infections so that the ineffective antibiotics could be removed from the line of treatment. The bacterial isolates obtained from the urine of patients visiting a tertiary health care facility were cultured for strain identification using API20E. Antimicrobial susceptibility and ESBL detection were done by Kirby-bauer diffusion technique. Almost 53.4 % isolates of E. coli and 24.5 % isolates of K. pneumoniae were found to be ESBL producers. The ESBL producing bacteria were found to be more resistant towards various antibiotics. The most effective drugs against E. coli ESBL isolates were imipenem (99.54 %), ampicillin-sulbactam (97.48 %), piperacillin-tazobactam (96.86 %), fosfomycin (94.51 %), amikacin (92.26 %) and nitrofurantoin (90.68 %). The most effective drugs against K. pneumoniae ESBL isolates were imipenem (97.62 %), piperacillin-tazobactam (95.35 %), ampicillin-sulbactam (90.48 %) and amikacin (88.37 %). The antibiotics having the highest resistance, particularly by the ESBL producers were amoxicillin clavulanic acid, sulphamethoxalzole/ trimethoprim, cefuroxime, cefpirome, ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin. Most of the isolates showed multi drug resistance (MDR). High frequency of ESBL producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae were observed as compared to previous data. Penicillins, cephalosporins and some representatives of fluoroquinolones were least effective against the common UTIs and are recommended to be removed from the line of treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Iftkhar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sajed
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Aneesa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sultan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Iram
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Murtaza
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Sohail
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yousaf
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine Unit 2, Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Bushra
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Maqsood
authors.affiliation: Department of Histology and Embryology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vanhara
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan ; Institute of Health and Management Sciences, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Mariam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Anees
keywords: ESBL; Escherichia coli; Klebsiella pneumoniae; antibiotic susceptibility