Prevalence and Antibiogram of Stenotrophomonas Maltophilia in a Tertiary Care Hospital at Trivandrum, Kerala

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia causes opportunistic infections and is an emerging opportunistic pathogen. The rate of infections due to these bacteria has increased in recent years and so is their resistance to antimicrobials. Thus, the present study was conducted with an objective to identify Stenotrophomonas isolation from various clinical samples and to study its antimicrobial sensitivity/ resistance pattern which will guide clinicians in prophylactic antibiotic therapy. A total of 400 clinical samples were collected from patients admitted in ICU and other wards of the hospital. All samples were inoculated on to Blood Agar (BA) and MacConkey Agar (MA) plates under strict aseptic conditions, followed by incubation at 37ºC for 24-48 hours under aerobic conditions. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method on Mueller Hinton agar. Out of 400 samples, 48.57% sputum samples, 34.38% of pus sample, 14.28% blood ssmples and 2.85% of other samples were positive for isolates.