Antimicrobial resistance of <i>Enterococcus faecium</i> and <i>Enterococcus faecalis</i>, isolated from blood culture of patients with hematological malignancies during different study periods

Objective: to determine antimicrobial resistance of Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis isolated from blood culture of hematological patients during different study periods.Materials and methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility of Enterococcus spp., collected as part of the multicenter study was tested by the broth microdilution method (USA Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI), 2018), to daptomycin by Etest (bioMeriéux, France). High-level gentamicin resistance (HLGR) and high-level streptomycin resistance (HLSR) was performed by the agar dilution method (CLSI (Oxoid, UK), 2018).Results. The susceptibility of 366 E. faecium (157 in 2002-2009 and 209 in 2010-2017) and 86 E. faecalis (44 in 20022009 and 42 in 2010-2017) was studied. In the second study period (2010-2017) the rise of vancomycin-resistant E. faecium (VREF) increased from 8.3 % to 23.4 % (p = 0.0001), and two linezolid-resistant (LREF) were identified. All VREF and LREF remained susceptible to daptomycin and tigecycline. The rate of susceptible to tetracycline E. faecium remained the same (73.9 and 74.6 %), and an increase in susceptibility to chloramphenicol (74.5 and 82.3 %) was observed. Susceptibility of E. faecium to tetracycline was detected with almost the same rate and in a part of isolates, the increase of susceptibility to chloramphenicol was registered during the analyzed periods. The rise of E. faecium susceptible to HLGR and HLSR has increased significantly in 2010-2017 compared to 2002-2009. Erythromycin, levofloxacin, ampicillin and penicillin had the least activity against E. faecium (less than 5 %).All E. faecalis were susceptible to tigecycline, linezolid, and teicoplanin. Only one of E. faecalis had intermediate resistance to vancomycin. High susceptibility to ampicillin in E. faecalis remained unchanged (97.7 and 97.6 %, respectively). In the second period of the study the rise of susceptible E. faecalis decreased significantly to penicillin (from 97.7 % to 76.2 %), to levofloxacin (from 59.1 % to 31 %), to HLSR (from 52.3 % до 31 %), and to HLGR (from 47.7 % to 26.2 %), remained unchanged to chloramphenicol (52.3 % and 50 %) and was minimal to erythromycin and tetracycline.Conclusion. The study demonstrated higher rates of antibiotic resistance among E. faecium, which consisted of an increase in VREF and the appearance of linezolid-resistant strains. High susceptibility to ampicillin remained in E. faecalis, but there was an increase in resistance to penicillin and aminoglycosides