Guler Yayli

E-Test Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations for Tigecycline Against Nosocomial Acinetobacter baumannii Strains

Acinetobacter baumannii is a nonfermentative Gram-negative bacterium that causes life-threatening nosocomial infections 1. The bacterium has been grown from numerous human sources, including skin, sputum and urine, and can cause suppurative infections in virtually every organ system. In the past, Acinetobacter infections have been treated with ampicillin or second-generation cephalosporins. A. baumannii are now resistant to these and many other antibiotics 2. Management of A. baumannii infections can be complicated because of the emergence of isolates with multiple-drug resistance. Therefore, many studies are in progress to evaluate new molecules that are potentially useful against A. baumannii. Tigecycline is a glycylcycline antibiotic that shows promising activity against a wide range of organisms. Tigecycline is active against many Gramnegative bacilli, including those resistant to multiple antibiotics 3. In our study, we determined the in vitro activity of tigecycline against nosocomial A. baumannii. The isolates were collected between 2000 and 2004 from patients hospitalized in the Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Department of our university-affiliated hospital. Isolates were obtained from various clinical specimens. All the isolates were stored at -80°C immediately after isolation. Among the stored isolates, 100 strains were Journal of Chemotherapy Vol. 19 n. 2 (230-231) 2007