Isolation, Identification, and Profile of Antibiotic Resistance of Bacteria inPatients with Cancer

Background: blood stream infection is one of the maincauses of morbidity and mortality in patients with cancer. thepurpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of aerobicand anaerobic-bacteremia in hospital inpatients with cancerand to determine the antibiotic resistance profile in isolatedorganisms in kerman, southeast iran.methods: total of 240 blood cultures from 136 patients wereexamined. the blood cultures performed in bactec mediaand were assessed for four weeks in aerobic and anaerobicconditions. identification of isolates and antibiotic susceptibilitytest were performed by standard methods.results: 24.6% of blood cultures were positive. the prevalenceof polymicrobial bacteremia was 12%. forty-three out of 65 isolatedbacteria (66%) were gram positive and others (34%) weregram negative. coagulase negative staphylococci (21.5%),propionibacterium spp (15.4%), diphtheroid spp (12.3%), andescherichia coli (12.2%) were the dominant isolated bacteria. allstaphylococci were methicillin resistant. the only isolatedpseudomonas putida and 37% of isolated escherichia coli weremulti-drug resistant. a number of streptococci, klebsiella, andalcaligenes spp were also resistant in part to the antibiotics.conclusion: patients with cancer may be readily infectedby many opportunistic pathogens including multi-drug resistantstrains.