Clinical and bacteriological profile of UTI patients attending a North Indian tertiary care center

Introduction: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common cause of morbidity in patients attending our hospital. Recently UTI has become more complicated and difficult to treat because of appearance of pathogens with increasing resistance to the commonly used antimicrobial agents. Objectives: The main aim of the study was to determine the bacteriological profile and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of UTI patients attending our hospital. Materials and Methods: 1843 patients complaining of fever with or without urinary symptoms attending medicine and nephrology clinics of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital, Aligarh from June 2012 to July 2014 were analysed. Clean catch mid-stream urine specimens collected from each subject were subjected to urine culture and sensitivity tests. Patients with age 15 to 85 years were included. Results: Significant bacteriuria was detected in 33.4% patients. Diabetes, obstructive uropathy, and previous instrumentation were the major risk factors identified. The most common pathogens isolated were Escherichia coli (52.4%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (12.3%) and Citrobacter spp. (9.1%). Most susceptible antibiotic was Amikacin, Cefoperazone-sulbactum, Piperacillin-tazobactum and Nitrofurantoin for most of the isolates. E. coli which was the main isolate was found to be most susceptible to Amikacin (78.3%), Cefoperazone-sulbactum (72.8%), Piperacillin-tazobactum (70.5%), Gentamicin (69.3%), Nitrofurantoin (67.3%), Cefoperazone (64.1%) and Ceftriaxone (61.6%). Conclusion: This study highlights the common pathogens causing UTI in our area and their antibiotic sensitivity patterns which could help clinicians in starting rational empirical antibiotic therapy for such patients while awaiting urine culture reports. This would significantly decrease the incidence of drug resistance and be more cost effective to the patients.