B. Nagaraja1, Zahir Feroz2, P. Nageswara Rao3
BACKGROUND
In India, Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media (CSOM) is a major public-health problem with a high-prevalence rate. Several organisms have been implicated in the causation of CSOM, posing a challenge to the management. This is further complicated by the problem of emerging antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains.
OBJECTIVE
We undertook the present study to identify the causative organisms in CSOM and their susceptibility patterns to antibiotics in a rural teaching hospital in South India.
METHODS
A total number of 100 ear swabs were bacteriologically investigated for the present study. All the swabs collected from patients with clinical diagnosis of CSOM visiting the ENT outpatient department of a rural teaching hospital from December 2014 to May 2015. All these are new patients who did not have recent treatment with antibiotics either locally or systemically. Another group of 30 ear swabs were collected from healthy individuals with no history of ear discharged for control study.
RESULTS
Of the 100 patients, 45 were males. Out of 100 swabs cultured, 95% were culture positive and 5% were culture negative. Of the culture positive cases, 70% were aerobes, 25% were anaerobes and 5% sterile. Further, of the 99% culture positive cases, gram positive isolates were 22(31.42%) and gram negative isolates were 48(68.57%).
The isolated organisms were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n=26; 37.15%), Staphylococcus aureus (n=15; 21.43%), Klebsiella pneumonia (n=12; 17.15%), Proteus spp. (n=6; 8.57%), Escherichia coli (n=4; 5.72%), Coagulase Negative Staphylococcus (n=5; 7.14%), Streptococcus pyogenes (n=1; 1%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (n=1; 1%), Bacteroides (n=13; 52%), peptostreptococcus (n=11; 44%) and Fusobacterium (n=1; 4%).
When antibiotic susceptibility was assessed, organisms were most susceptible to amikacin, followed by g the Antibiotics tested for sensitivity of the Isolates Amikacin stands first followed by Gentamicin and Ciprofloxacin.
CONCLUSION
CSOM is a serious condition, which is the most common cause of hearing loss, especially in the developing world. In our study, Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the most common causative organism, and amikacin seemed to be the most effective antibiotic with low resistance rates.
