Introduction: Infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in burn patients, in spite of considerable advances in burn wound care and medical treatment. In patients with Grade 3 burns, 75% of all death is currently related to sepsis from burn wound infections. Infection causes 50% to 60% of deaths in burn patients in spite of intensive therapy with antibiotics both topically as well as intravenous.

Aim Of The Study: The present study was undertaken to know the aerobic bacteriological profile of burn wound infection and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern.

Materials And Methods: A total of 50 specimens were received from burn patients between April and August 2013. Swabs were taken from infected burns with aseptic precautions and transported to laboratory. All the samples were processed as per CLSI guidelines. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was done by Kirby-Bauer Disk Diffusion method according to CLSI guidelines. 

Results: A total of 48 bacterial pathogens were isolated from 50 samples. The most frequent cause of infection was found to be Pseudomonas aeruginosa (50%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (20%), Klebsiella spp (14%), Escherishia coli (8. %), A High level of drug resistance was observed for Cefotaxime,and Ceftazidime among gram negative pathogens. Piperacillin/Tazobactam, Amikacin and Ciprofloxacin were found to be most effective. Forty percent of the S. aureus isolates were methicillin resistant but none was resistant to Vancomycin & Linezolid. 

Discussion: In our study, Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the commonest organism isolated, followed by the Staphylococcus aureus. A significantly high percentage of resistance among gram-negative bacilli to Ceftazidime and Cefotaxime is seen. This alarming trend was seen for both Enterobacteriaceae group and for Pseudomonas aeruginosa.  Least resistance was seen to Amikacin, and Piperacillin/Tazobactam. Forty percent Staphylococcus aureus were found to be methicillin resistant. However Vancomycin and Linezolid were shown to be 100% effective.

Conclusions: The present study shows pseudomonas aeruginosa to be the most common isolate. The pathogens are multidrug resistant with only few available options like amikacin, piperacillin/tazobactem, linezolid and others. This suggests that hygiene should strictly be maintained around burn patients to avoid opportunistic infections.

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Sangeetha C Patil*

Department of Microbiology, Vijaya Nagar Institute of Microbiology

Ballari Karnataka, India