Survey of culture and antibiogram in patients with impetigo

Background: Impetigo is a common infectious skin disease and most commonly occurs in children. Etiologic agents are Staphylococcus aureus or Beta-heamolytic Streptococcus group A or combination of these organisms. Adequacy of treatment is related on sensitivity of bacteria to common prescribed antibiotics.Methods: Study of the frequency of bacterial culture results from lesions and antibiograms for four systemic antibiotics cephalexin, erythromycin, cloxacillin and penicillin were assayed. Impetigo cases admitted to the dermatology clinic of Ghaem hospital in Mashhad for one year beginning from June 2001, were studied. These patients had no history of systemic or topical antimicrobial agents application. Results of antibiograms obtained from culture of skin lesions were analyzed with Chi-Square test.Findings: Twenty two (88%) patients were younger than 20 years. Twenty one cases (84%) had non bullous impetigo. In 17 (68%) cases lesions were localized on the face. Because of secondary contamination in 3 cases, statistical analysis was performed on 22 cases. The most common bacteria (95.5%) was Staphylococcus aureus. Antibiograms of S.aureus showed complete sensitivity to cephalxin in 85.3%, erythromycin in 63.6%, cloxacillin in 40.9%, and penicillin in 13.6% of cases. Conclusions: Staphylococcus aureus was the most common organism in 95.5% of cases and cephalexin was the first choice oral antibiotic followed by erythromycin