Bacteria In Urinary Tract Infections Research Articles

Susceptibility of Bacteria Infecting Urinary Tract to Some Antibiotics and Essential Oils

This study investigates the most common urinary tract infection bacteria and their sensitivity to antibiotics and some essential oils from Egyptian plants. The Urinary tract bacteria were sampled from patients expressing any symptoms of urinary tract infection except those taking antibiotics. The bacteria were isolated, cultured, and identified. 64 bacterial isolates were identified as E.coli (28 isolates), Klebsiella pneumonia (9 isolates) Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6 isolates), Proteus mirabilis (6 isolates), Staph.aureus (5 isolates) , Enterococcus faecalis (4 isolates), Morganella morganii ( 4 isolates ) and Pseudomonas fluorescens (2 isolates). The isolates showed different degrees of sensitivity to different antibiotics . Among the essential oils of five medical plants known for their application in folk medicine in Egypt , oil of Dill (Anethum graveolens ) showed the highest effect , affecting more than 50 % of both gram +ve and gram –ve bacteria ,followed by Parsley (Petroselinum hortense) and Celery (Apium graveolens) affecting 48% & 41% of the isolates respectively . The oil of Thyme (Thymus valgare) was effective against Gram –ve bacteria only. The lowest effects were recorded to the oil of Chamomile (Marticaria recutita) affecting only 5% of the tested isolates.

Antibiotic susceptibility of common bacterial pathogens in urinary tract infections in a Teaching hospital in Southwestern Nigeria

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections in humans and a major cause of morbidity. However, the aetiology of UTI and their antibiotic sensitivity patterns vary from time to time and across different areas. This study determines the frequently isolated UTI bacteria from in-patients and out-patients of a Teaching hospital in South-western Nigeria and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. Sixty (60) bacterial isolates from urine of patients with significant bacteriuria in UTI were collected and evaluated for their antibiotic sensitivity using modified Kirby-Bauer method. UTI was frequently encountered in females (61.7%) and older patients (50%). 55% of the isolates were from in-patients. The most common etiological organisms of UTI were Esherichia coli (46.7%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (18.3%), Klebsiella spp (13.3%), Staphylococcus aureus (13.3%) and Proteus spp (6.7%). Pseudomonas aeruginosa was found only among hospital isolates while Staphylococcus aureus was isolated from females only. Antibiotic susceptibility pattern revealed that the Enterobacteriaceae were highly susceptible to Ciprofloxacin (71.4 to 75%) while Nitrofurantoin demonstrated the best activity against S. aureus isolates (100%) in both community and hospital acquired UTI. All the isolates exhibited high degree of resistance to Augmentin and amoxicillin. High rate of multi-drug resistance was recorded among all isolates. In view of the increasing rate of resistance of UTI pathogens to commonly used antibiotics, rational prescription and use of antibiotics is advocated. Key words: Urinary tract infections, bacterial pathogens, susceptibility.

Clinical investigation of isolated bacteria from urinary tracts of hospitalized patients and their susceptibilities to antibiotics

Complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) are often difficult to treat, partly because of the existence of isolated antibiotic-resistant strains. Even though the definition of UTI is determined by the quantity of cultured bacteria, it has been unclear if the quantity of cultured UTI bacteria affects their susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. Also, the gram stain is generally performed to assume the causative bacteria and their quantity before culture results can be obtained; therefore, we could start to use effective antibiotics if the relationship between bacterial quantity and resistance to antimicrobial agents were clear. We studied patients diagnosed as having complicated UTIs at the Urological Department in Kobe University Hospital between June 2002 and March 2003 and analyzed the relationships between the quantity of cultured bacteria and their antimicrobial MICs for antibiotics. The most commonly isolated bacteria were Serratia marcescens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. There was no significant correlation between the quantity of cultured bacteria and antimicrobial MICs in all the bacteria and antibiotics that we tested, suggesting that resistant phenotype, but not inoculum of the organism, did determine resistance to antibiotics. In conclusion, our investigation suggested the total number of isolated bacteria in urine culture did not determine the MICs and that inoculum of the bacteria might be important for this determination.

Ultra-violet resonance Raman spectroscopy for the rapid discrimination of urinary tract infection bacteria

The ability to identify pathogenic organisms rapidly provides significant benefits to clinicians; in particular, with respect to best prescription practices and tracking of recurrent infections. Conventional bioassays require 3–5 days before identification of an organism can be made, thus compromising the effectiveness with which patients can be treated for bacterial infections. We analysed 20 clinical isolates of urinary tract infections (UTI) by ultra-violet resonance Raman (UVRR) spectroscopy, utilising 244 nm excitation delivering ∼0.1 mW laser power at the sample, with typical spectral collection times of 120 s. UVRR results in resonance-enhanced Raman signals for certain chromophoric segments of macromolecules, intensifying those selected bands above what would otherwise be observed for a normal Raman experiment. Utilising the whole-organism ‘fingerprints’ obtained by UVRR we were able to discriminate successfully between UTI pathogens using chemometric cluster analyses. This work demonstrates significant improvements in the speed with which spectra can be obtained by Raman spectroscopic techniques for the discrimination of clinical bacterial samples.

The disturbing development of resistance in urinary tract infections

Despite recent caveats about the rapid development of resistance to fluoroquinolones in the treatment of urinary tract infections (UTI), the good tolerability, bioavailability and the broad antibiotic spectrum of fluoroquinolons explain their increased use. We investigated the changes of bacterial spectra and cross resistance profiles in ambulatory and hospitalized UTI patients. A total of 430 positive urine cultures and resistograms were classified according to patient status as either ambulatory or hospitalized and retrospectively analyzed. Cross-resistance profiles of the most effective antibiotics (cotrimoxazol, levofloxacin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid) were made before an analysis of cost-effectiveness was performed. Whereas Escherichia coli remains the predominant cause of UTI in ambulatory patients, Enterococcus faecalis is the most frequently detected bacterium in the urine cultures of hospitalized patients. This is one reason for the unacceptably high rate of primary resistance of UTI bacteria against cephalosporins. Primary resistance to cotrimoxazol, amoxicillin/cavulanic acid and levofloxacin are impressive and tend to favor the use of levofloxacin. However, high cross-resistance rates reduce the usability of one antibiotic in case of the lack of effectiveness of the other. The broad use of potent antibiotics in hospitals has led to a higher primary resistance and cross-resistance of UTI bacteria in hospitalized patients than in ambulatory patients. The primary resistance of UTI causing bacteria is generally high and worrying. The new fluoroquinolone levofloxacin exhibits surprisingly high primary resistance rates and shares high cross-resistance with other antibiotics that are as effective but much cheaper. Thus, we consider that it should not be a first line treatment option for ambulatory UTI patients in the absence of any resistogram, in order to ensure cost-effectiveness and a slow down in the rapid development of resistance.

Resistance of bacteria in urinary tract infections

Bacterial infection of the urinary tract is a common health problem in young women but also the most common nosocomial infection (>33%) contributing to the mortality of patients, and increasing the duration and cost of hospitalization. Escherichia coli is the most predominant organism and its prevalence varies in different studies. The high consumption of inappropriately prescribed antibiotics, combined with multiple pathology and frequent use of invasive devices, is a major factor contributing to high levels of resistance. There is a serious decrease in susceptibility of E. coli strains to amoxycillin, due to the presence of R-TEM enzymes, to cotrimoxazole and trimethoprim. Nitrofurantoin and fosfomycin-trometamol remain highly active against urinary Enterobacteriaceae, with over 90% of E. coli being susceptible. Knowledge of the most likely causative organisms and the prevalence of resistance pathogens to antimicrobial agents is essential to select antibiotics and to establish guidelines for the empirical treatment of urinary tract infections.

Rapid identification of urinary tract infection bacteria using hyperspectral whole-organism fingerprinting and artificial neural networks.

Three rapid spectroscopic approaches for whole-organism fingerprinting-pyrolysis mass spectrometry (PyMS), Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FT-IR) and dispersive Raman microscopy--were used to analyse a group of 59 clinical bacterial isolates associated with urinary tract infection. Direct visual analysis of these spectra was not possible, highlighting the need to use methods to reduce the dimensionality of these hyperspectral data. The unsupervised methods of discriminant function and hierarchical cluster analyses were employed to group these organisms based on their spectral fingerprints, but none produced wholly satisfactory groupings which were characteristic for each of the five bacterial types. In contrast, for PyMS and FT-IR, the artificial neural network (ANN) approaches exploiting multi-layer perceptrons or radial basis functions could be trained with representative spectra of the five bacterial groups so that isolates from clinical bacteriuria in an independent unseen test set could be correctly identified. Comparable ANNs trained with Raman spectra correctly identified some 80% of the same test set. PyMS and FT-IR have often been exploited within microbial systematics, but these are believed to be the first published data showing the ability of dispersive Raman microscopy to discriminate clinically significant intact bacterial species. These results demonstrate that modern analytical spectroscopies of high intrinsic dimensionality can provide rapid accurate microbial characterization techniques, but only when combined with appropriate chemometrics.

Uricult® and Sensicult® Dipslides for Diagnosis of Bacteriuria and Prediction of Drug Resistance in Primary Health Care

Uricult dipslide as an indicator of bacteriuria yielded acceptable results in primary health care (PHC), and readings by local staffs were similar to those by laboratory technicians. Sensicult dipslide detected somewhat fewer bacteriurias and predicted bacterial drug sensitivity better than resistance (predictive values 93% and 50%, respectively). The mean risk of bacterial drug resistance against seven common urinary tract infection (UTI) antibiotics in PHC was 17%. The use of Sensicult for targeting UTI therapy resulted in an average risk of 7% for prescribing drugs to which the organism was resistant. The corresponding risk with Uricult for classification of UTI bacteria by Gram grouping, lactose and catalase reactions, and local guidelines for therapy of different bacterial groups, was also 7%. The latter method is simple, offers qualitative, and thus prognostic information, but can be further improved.

In vivo evidence that bacteria in urinary tract infection grow under iron-restricted conditions.

The outer membrane protein composition of bacteria isolated directly and without subculturing from the urine of two patients with urinary tract infections was investigated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The results indicated that the bacteria grew under iron-restricted conditions, as revealed by the expression of several high-molecular-weight outer membrane proteins which could also be observed when the same isolates were grown under iron-depleted conditions in laboratory media. The antigenicity of outer membrane components of the bacteria isolated was studied by immunoblotting with serum samples from the patients. The results indicated that the sera from the patients contained antibodies against major outer membrane components of the bacteria present in the urine, including the iron-regulated membrane proteins.

Antibody-Coated Bacteria in Urinary Tract infections

In 1974 we reported that a non-invasive fluorescent antibody (FA) test is useful in establishing the anatomic site of infection in the urinary tract [1]. The technique utilizes a simple and direct immunofluorescence procedure to detect antibody-coated bacteria (ACB) in urine sediments of patients with urinary tract infections. ACB are usually found in urine samples from patients with kidney infections but not from patients with uncomplicated bladder infections. This review focuses on the efforts of our own laboratory and the work of other investigators in (1) evaluating the clinical application of the test for ACB as a diagnostic aid, (2) determining the usefulness of the test in defining populations for epidemiologic and therapeutic studies, (3) ascertaining the prognostic usefulness of the test in following the clinical course of the individual patient with persistent or recurrent infections, and (4) defining the biological significance of ACB in urine.

Antibody-coated bacteria in urinary tract infections

In 1974 we reported that a non-invasive fluorescent antibody (FA) test is useful in establishing the anatomic site of infection in the urinary tract [1]. The technique utilizes a simple and direct immunofluorescence procedure to detect antibody-coated bacteria (ACB) in urine sediments of patients with urinary tract infections. ACB are usually found in urine samples from patients with kidney infections but not from patients with uncomplicated bladder infections. This review focuses on the efforts of our own laboratory and the work of other investigators in (1) evaluating the clinical application of the test for ACB as a diagnostic aid, (2) determining the usefulness of the test in defining populations for epidemiologic and therapeutic studies, (3) ascertaining the prognostic usefulness of the test in following the clinical course of the individual patient with persistent or recurrent infections, and (4) defining the biological significance of ACB in urine.

Effect of clavulanic acid and amoxycillin formulation against β-lactamase producing Gram-negative bacteria in urinary tract infections

Six patients with urinary tract infections due to β-lactamase producing Gram-negative bacteria received a single dose of amoxycillin (500 mg), followed 48 h later by a single dose of the formulation clavulanic acid (100 mg) and amoxycillin (500 mg). Bacterial counts and antibiotic assay in the urine were undertaken at 0,4,8,24 and 48 h. In the presence of clavulanic acid, the urine level of amoxycillin achieved a normal range and the bacterial count dramatically decreased.

Effect of Combined Therapy on Emergence of Drug Resistant Bacteria in Urinary Tract Infections: Observations on Origin of Resistant Strains

Effect of Combined Therapy on Emergence of Drug Resistant Bacteria in Urinary Tract Infections: Observations on Origin of Resistant Strains

Effect of diathermy on urinary tract infections

The author states that diathermy leads to the elimination of bacteria in urinary tract infections. The disappearance of bacteria is not due to the direct effect of the heat, since heat-resistant bacteria are also destroyed, but due to diathermy-induced leukocytosis, which enhances the elimination of bacteria.