Molecular Detection of Carbapenem Resistance in Acinetobacter Baumannii Isolated From Patients in Khorramabad City, Iran

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen, which causes a wide range of infections in hospitals, especially in intensive care units. Nowadays, due to the high resistance of Acinetobacter bumanni to antibiotics, this study, in addition to the phenotypic and genotypic investigations of drug resistance, focused on determining the molecular types of Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from patients in Khorramabad city by the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) method. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 50 samples of Acinetobacter baumannii were collected from educational hospitals in Khorramabad city, Iran, from January to August 2015. They were identified in the laboratory using biochemical tests and culture methods. After determining the drug resistance pattern by the disc diffusion method and percentage of resistance genes to carbapenems, Acinetobacter baumannii isolates were analyzed using the PFGE method using the Apa1 enzyme. Results: The highest antibiotic resistance observed for Acinetobacter baumannii strains was against ampicillin-sulbactam (100%) and aztreonam (98%). The highest sensitivity was to polymixin B (100%) and colistin (94%), and also to the OXA-51-like gene present in all samples. The OXA-23-like gene was positive in 44 (88%) samples. PFGE results showed that Acinetobacterbaumannii strains had 33 different pulsotype patterns, of which 27 patterns had more than one strain and 23 had only one strain. Conclusion: Due to the high resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii and its ease of spread and its ability to transfer resistance genes, resistance control methods should be used in the disinfection of hospital areas. Hospital staff should observe hygiene standards and there should also be a reduction in antibiotic use.