Current Trends in Resistance Patterns in Escherichia Coli Associated Urinary Tract Infections in Adults in a Tertiary Hospital in Douala Cameroon
Julius Kenkoh Nkiese* and Lilian Neh Suh
ABSTRACT
Urinary Tract Infections are frequently encountered in clinical practice and are a real burden to healthcare. This research was motivated by the frequent treatment failures observed following empirical therapy of Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) especially with oral antibiotics. The research was a retrospective cross-sectional study. The data was extracted from the registers in the Laboratory used to record results for Culture and Sensitivity. Data collection covered the period from December 2023 to June 2024 and considered 203 samples for analysis for which culture results were positive for bacterial uropathogens in adult, non-pregnant patients above 14 years of age. The main objective was to identify the various other uropathogens besides E. coli commonly associated with UTI within the health facility and examine their sensitivity and resistance patterns that can inform therapeutic decisions in clinical practice, especially
in the absence of a functional microbiology laboratory, as well as influence the essential medicines list.
The research identified the five leading causes of UTI to include E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Citrobacter freundi and Enterobacter spp. We observed massive resistance to oral and injectable antibiotics with no obvious trend, making empirical therapy very difficult, even for simple UTIs. Therefore, drawing from the results and the massive resistant patterns Culture and Sensitivity remain the gold standard in the management of UTI for both simple and complicated UTIs, and the therapeutic approach should consider combination therapy.
