Avik Chakraborty1, Arkadip Choudhury2, Jayanta Debnath3, Nirmalya Saha4
Acute exacerbations are significant and frequent events in the natural history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Majority of these exacerbations are of infectious aetiology, bacteria being responsible for 30-50% of these cases. With not many studies of similar type being conducted in the Indian context, this study was undertaken with the purpose of determining the bacteriology of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in hospitalized patients with advanced disease and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern to formulate a cost effective algorithm for antibiotic usage while at the same time reducing the chances of emergence of drug resistance. Sputum sample from a total of 338 patients were send for Gram’s stain and culture sensitivity testing using an array of the commonly used antibiotics. Pathogenic bacteria were isolated from 203 (60.1%) samples. Gram negative bacteria were isolated from 79.8 percent (162/203) cases while the rest were Gram positive. Klebsiella species were the commonest (49.2%; 100/203) Gram negative isolates from the sputum samples. Among the gram negative organisms, Carbapenem had the highest sensitivity (90.2%) followed by Amikacin, Ciprofloxacin and Piperacillin-Tazobactam. Linezolid was found to be 100 percent sensitive amongst the Gram positive organisms while both Amoxicillin Clavulanate and Azithromycin showed a rather low sensitivity profile overall. 5.0 percent of the Klebsiella infections were multi drug resistant. It was thereby concluded that either Amikacin, Ciprofloxacin or Piperacillin-Tazobactam for be considered for Gram negative organisms and Linezolid be considered for Gram positive organisms as first line antibiotics in empirical therapy while Carbapenems may be kept as reserve drugs should the first line drugs fail.
