Antibiotic susceptibility of Klebsiella pneumoniae strains isolated from clinical samples

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria has become a worrying phenomenon in today's world. K. pneumoniae is a member of the Enterobacteriaceae family, which causes nosocomial infections as an opportunistic pathogen but inherently harboured as a part of the natural human microbiota. Carbapenem resistance of K. pneumoniae was a rare occurrence up to ten years ago, but in recent years many types of carbapenemase producing K. pneumoniae have become common. This retrospective study aims analysing susceptibility to various antibiotics, commonly used in treatment against K. pneumoniae strains isolated by using conventional methods from various infection sites. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed by using an automated system, the VITEK 2 Compact ®. In this study, 502 K. pneumoniae strains isolated from patients that treated at various services of a university hospital with 515-bed capacity were examined. When compared to the data available with studies of recent years in Turkey, especially in intensive care and inpatient services, the resistance of K. pneumoniae strains to antibiotics against most to carbapenems is rapidly increasing in the degree of high concern. Therefore, in all hospitals, antibiotic management policies should be implemented with a multidisciplinary approach.