Detection of macrolide,lincosamide and streptogramin resistance among methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Mumbai

Background: the increase in incidence of methicillin resistant staphyloccocus aureus (mrsa) and its extraordinary potential to develop antimicrobial resistance has highlighted the need for better agents to treat such infections. this has led to a renewed interest in use of new drugs for treatment with clindamycin and quinuprsitin-dalfopristin being the preferred choice for treatment. aim & objectives: this study was undertaken to detect the prevalence of macrolide- lincosamide-streptogramin (mls) resistance among clinical isolates of mrsa material and methods: two hundred and thirty clinical isolates of s. aureus were subjected to routine antibiotic susceptibility testing including cefoxitin,erythromycin and quinupristindalfopristin. inducible resistance to clindamycin was tested by 'd' test as per clinical and laboratory standards institute (clsi) guidelines. results: out of all s. aureus isolates,93.91% were identified as mrsa. in the disc diffusion testing,81.5% of isolates showed erythromycin resistance. among these,the prevalence of constitutive (cmls),inducible (imls) b b and ms-phenotype were 35.80%,31.82% and 32.39% respectively by the d-test method. 77.8% of isolates were resistant to quinupristin-dalfopristin and the minimum inhibitory concentration (mic) ranged from 4–32 µg/ml. 89.20% of isolates were resistant to both quinupristin-dalfopristin and erythromycin of which 35.03%,35.67% and 29.30% belonged to imls,cmls and ms phenotype respectively. conclusion: the emergence of quinupristindalfopristin resistance and mls phenotypes brings b about the need for the simple and reliable d-test in routine diagnosis and further susceptibility testing for proper antimicrobial therapy. © journal of krishna institute of medical sciences university