Prevalence of Carbapenem Resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii Isolates from Burn and Non Burn Patients in Tehran

Background : Acinetobacter baumannii has become one of the most important causes of nosocomial infections in recent years. The organism seems to be resistant to most classes of antibiotics. Carbapenems are considered the most effective drugs for treatment of these infections. However, increasing emergence of carbapenem resistant A. baumannii has become amajor healthcare problem.Methods:The present study was conducted to compare the antibiotic susceptibility of 61isolates of A. baumannii (31 from patients with burn infections and 30 from non-burn patients) to 12 antibiotics including imipenem and meropenem by disc diffusion.Results:Both groups of the isolates showed high levels of resistance to all classes of antibiotics except for aminoglycosides. Imipenem resistance was observed in 96.7% of the non-burn isolates and 100% among the burn strains.Conclusion:On the other hand, resistance to meropenem was significantly higher in non-burn isolates (83.3%) compared to the burn strains (6.4%).