Study of surgical site infections and its antibiogram in a surgical ICU of a tertiary care hospital in south west Rajasthan

Background: Surgical infections can be caused through two major sources: exogenous and endogenous bacteria. Surgical site infections (SSIs) is one of the most common complications encountered in surgery. SSI places a significant burden on both the patient and health system, thus a major cause of morbidity, prolonged hospital stay and increased health costs. Objective of this study was to identify and isolate various bacteria from wound infections in a surgical intensive care unit and to study their antibiogram.Methods: Two wound swabs were collected from the wound and from a drop of aspirate, smear was made on clean glass slide and Gram staining was done for direct microscopic examination under oil immersion 100X objective to know various morphological types of bacteria and presence or absence of inflammatory cells. Second swab/drop of aspirate was used for culture by inoculating it on routine media like blood agar, nutrient agar and MacConkeys agar, incubated at 37° C for 24 hours aerobically.Results: Out of 150 pus samples, 122 (81.3%) were culture positive for bacterial growth and no growth was observed in 28 (18.7%) cases. Out of 122 bacterial culture positive cases, 120 were monobacterial and 2 were poly bacterial. Out of 122 bacterial isolates; E. coli (32/26.2%) was the commonest followed by P. aeruginosa (32/24.5%).Conclusions: The study concludes that variety of aerobic bacteria is responsible for surgical site infections with predominance of Escherichia coli followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa.