Abstract :
Introduction: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are the commonest infections, where people from all
age groups including children to older age individuals experience in their life time. Though several
microorganisms are attributed as causative agents of UTI like fungi, viruses, bacterial infections are
responsible for > 95% of UTI cases.
Untreated UTI can lead to high morbidity and long term complications like renal scarring, hypertension
and chronic kidney diseases. There is diversity among uropathogens regionally and gradually becoming
more and more difficult to treat leading to therapeutic dead end. And also because of evolving antibiotic
resistance phenomenon among uropathogens, regular monitoring is utmost important to provide guidelines
for empirical antimicrobial therapy.
Materials and Methods: This is an observational study carried out in the department of Microbiology
in Santhiram Medical college and General hospital for a period of three months from January 2019 to
March 2019. A total of 550 midstream urine samples were processed from patients of all age groups with
suspected UTI symptoms. Urine culture was done by semi quantitative technique.
Results of urine culture were detected as significant and insignificant based on standard Kass criteria. A
growth of >=105 colony forming units (CFU)/ml is considered as active UTI with significant bacteruria.
Cultures having more than three types of colonies were considered as contaminants. Pathogenic organisms
were identified by Gram stain, motility testing and biochemical reactions as per standard microbiological
techniques. The antimicrobial sensitivity testing was done by Kirby-Bauer Disc diffusion method.
Results: A total of 550 urine samples were analysed, out of which 192(34.9%) samples were found to have
significant bacteriuria and the rest 358 (65%) were either non significant bacteriuria or having very low
counts of bacteria or sterile urine. Among the 192 positive samples, 125 (65.1%) were from females and
67 (34.8%) were from males. Predominantly Gram negative bacteria (79.1%) were isolated among culture
positive samples followed by Gram positive bacteria (13.0%) and fungi i.e. Candida (5.7%).
Keyword :
Urinary tract infections (UTI), Escherichia coli (E.coli), Klebsiella spps, Antibiotic resistance.