Bacteriological profile and antibiotic sensitivity pattern of blood isolates from neonatal ICU of a tertiary care hospital in North India

Introduction: Neonatal sepsis is a common but dreadful problem faced by neonatologists and is responsible for approximately 25% of all neonatal deaths in the world. Neonates are at increased risk of contracting infections due to immature immune system. It is difficult to clinically diagnose sepsis in these babies because the clinical features of sepsis are subtle in these neonates. Culture and sensitivity remains the gold standard test to diagnose and treat neonates in this situation. Moreover knowledge of prevalent bacterial flora and its susceptibility patterns in a particular neonatal intensive care unit is essential for empirical antibiotic therapy because the treatment of sepsis needs to be immediately started and any delay in starting appropriate antibiotic therapy can prove fatal. For this reason it is important to determine bacteriological profile and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of blood isolates from every neonatal intensive care unit. We conducted this cross sectional study to determine bacteriological profile and antibiotic susceptibility pattern from blood cultures collected from neonatal intensive care units of our institute. Aims and Objective: To determine bacteriological profile and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of blood isolates from neonatal intensive care unit. Materials and Methods: This was a cross sectional study carried out in microbiology department. The blood samples were processed by conventional blood culture and identification of the organism was done by standard bacteriological techniques. Antibiotic sensitivity was performed by Kirby Bauer disc-diffusion method in accordance to Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) 2016 guidelines. Results: A total of 1521 blood samples were received from NICU. Of these, bacteraemia could be confirmed by culture in 12.3% (187/1521) cases. In the present study, Gram-negative organisms predominated being responsible for 76% (142/187) of cases of septicaemia followed by the gram positive organisms in 24% (45/187) cases. Conclusion: Establishing bacteriological profile and susceptibility patterns of isolates from a particular neonatal intensive care unit is a critical step in managing neonatal sepsis. Such knowledge is critical in deciding empirical antibiotic therapy by treating neonatologist. Our study identified the prevalent organisms and provided with sensitivity patterns of the organisms prevalent in neonatal intensive care unit.