Abstract:

Aim: Acinetobacter baumannii is an important pathogen causing concern worldwide with increasing antibiotic resistance. We aimed to provide epidemiological data and molecular differences between multidrug resistant A.baumannii isolates obtained from 7 different centers in Türkiye. Material and Method: One hundred sixty-six multidrug-resistant A.baumannii strains were included in the study. All the isolates were tested for antibiotic susceptibility according to EUCAST criteria. To molecularly confirm the carbapenem-resistant A.baumannii isolates, the specific blaOXA-51-like gene region was detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. A possible phylogenetic relationship between multi-drug resistant isolates was investigated using Pulsed-field Gel Electrophoresis method. Results: One hundred sixty-six carbapenem-resistant A.baumannii strains were evaluated by the ApaI-PFGE (Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis –PFGE) method using the CHEF-DRII electrophoresis system. A total of 51 clusters were grouped into 142 pulsotypes. Twenty clusters had single members. Thirty-one clusters had multiple members and were identified with the capital letters of the alphabet such as A, B, …, and Z26. It was observed that 40 PFGE profiles showed 100% related. Conclusion: More intense contamination is in question in the provinces with many patients. In four of the seven different centers, more innocent results were obtained in terms of the number of samples, antibiotic resistance and clonal relationship when compared to the other three centers. However, this may be caused by the low population zone and inadequate health services. Regional or multicenter studies are minimal. Thus, further studies involving more centers and larger populations are needed. Consequently, the present study will shed light on future studies and create thriving literature on border regions

Keywords: