Biofilm production and antimicrobial resistance in clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from a university teaching hospital in north central Nigeria

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the biofilm-forming bacteria implicated in many infections resulting in prolonged hospital stay, morbidity and high mortality, with ultimate economic burden and retardation of antibiotics effectiveness. This study determined the  iofilm production potential and antimicrobial resistance pattern in clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi. All suspected Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from samples submitted to the Medical Microbiology Laboratory Unit of the Hospital from August, 2023 to January 2024, were collected, purified and identified using standard microbiological techniques. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out using the disk diffusion method and EUCAST interpretative criteria. A total of 200 samples were randomly collected from different sources, 50 samples per source (Ear, wound, urine and blood). The occurrence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from all the sources was 40.5% (81/200). Of the 81 Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, 67% (54) were biofilm producers (How did you determine this? Not mentioned above). The distribution of biofilm producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates in the different samples evaluated were 44.4% (36) from ear swab, 27.2% (22) from wound swab, 18.5% (15) from urine and 9.9% (8) from blood. The isolates were resistant to Ticarcillin-Clavulanic acid (73%), Ceftazidine (32%), Ciprofloxacin (28%), Amikacin (26%) and Imipenem (1 %). Statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference in antibiotics resistance pattern of biofilm producers and nonbiofilm producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates. In this study, 25(31%) of the isolates were multidrug resistant (MDR), being resistant to one or more agents in three or more antibiotic classes. This study reported biofilm producing P. aeruginosa with high resistance profile from Makurdi and calls for immediate surveillance of biofilm production in all clinical isolates to reduce the spread of resistance among patients.