Speciation of Enterococci as a Urinary Pathogen with Its Resistance Pattern: A Study from Pondicherry.

Enterococcus spp. is a common urinary pathogen, which is less commonly speciated. Ithas emergedas nosocomial pathogen with resistance to multiple antimicrobial agents including glycopeptides. This study was done to speciate Enterococciisolated from urine cultures and to study their resistance pattern.A descriptive study was performed at a tertiary care hospital in Pondicherry from June to December2011. The urine specimens received at the microbiology lab were processed by standard procedures. All Enterococciidentified, were further speciated and the antibiogram was determined by disk diffusion method. Out of 55 Enterococci isolates identified from urine samples, 70.90% of isolates were from females and 29.09% were from males. Most of the patients were inpatients (58.18%). Enterococcus faecalis(78.18%) was the most commonly isolated followed by Enterococcus faecium (21.82%). 44.1% were resistant to ciprofloxacin and 39.5% were resistant to tetracycline, 20.93% of E. faecalis were resistant to high level gentamicin (HLG). All the E. faecium isolates were sensitive to HLG but 2.5% were resistant to tetracycline and 16.6% were resistant to ciprofloxacin. No vancomycin resistance was identified. Enterococcus faecalisis the commonest Enterococcusisolate causing UTI. No vancomycin resistance was identified among the urinary isolates from our centre.