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Stenotrophomonas maltophilia was considered to be a low-virulence organism. But it has emerged as a prominent opportunistic pathogen in patients with certain risk factors. This study aimed to describe an outbreak experienced in our hospital with all dynamics while evaluating previous S. maltophilia outbreak reports. S. maltophilia isolates were obtained from a university hospital in Türkiye in a seven-months period. Antimicrobial resistance, type of infections, predisposing factors of infected patients, antibiotic therapy, outcome of infections, and outbreak source were investigated. Also, S. maltophilia outbreaks in the literature were reviewed. In the 12 months prior to the outbreak, prevalence rate of clinical samples including S. maltophilia was 7/1,000 patient per day, opposed to 113/1,000 patient per day during the outbreak. Although a large number of cases were observed in a short seven-month period, a source of contamination could not be detected. Stable mortality rates (or remaining close to the average) during outbreaks can be attributed to the careful attention paid by laboratory and clinic physicians during procedures. S. maltophilia has potential to spread outbreaks and infect patients in operating rooms and intensive care units during invasive procedures.

Sphingomonas paucimobilis is an aerobic, non-fermentative, opportunistic Gram-negative bacillus found in water systems. This study was conducted to analyze concurrent S. paucimobilis bacteremia cases and treatment outcomes, potential outbreak sources, and antimicrobial resistance profiles. This ambidirectional cohort study was conducted in a 30-bed pediatric hematology-oncology hospital. The patients' ages ranged from 1 to 17 years, with a median age of 5 years. Environmental sampling was applied to investigate the outbreak source. Bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility tests of the isolated bacteria were performed using the disk diffusion method and Vitek®2 automated system. S. paucimobilis was detected in 181 blood culture samples from 51 patients over 2 years and was isolated from hot tap water. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) was diagnosed for 66% of patients, and two of our patients with ALL died due to S. paucimobilis sepsis. S. paucimobilis isolates are susceptible to carbapenems and quinolones. Surveillance and epidemic control should be performed for hospital-acquired infectious agents such as S. paucimobilis. In additon, water distribution systems should be checked for colonizing agents at regular intervals.

Background/aim: Acinetobacter baumannii is one of the most commonly encountered microorganisms in nosocomial infections. It is thought that strains found in the environment can be a source for contamination of patients by Acinetobacter strains that are resistant to environmental conditions. This study was carried out to compare Acinetobacter strains isolated from a variety of nonviable environments and from patients in intensive care units (ICUs), and to explore whether environmental areas may be a source for bacterial contamination., Materials and Methods: We studied A. baumannii strains isolated from ICU patients. When A. baumannii was isolated from the clinical sample of a patient, swab samples were collected from various areas in the ICU. VITEK 2 (bioMérieux, France) was used for the identification of A. baumannii strains and for antibiotic sensitivity tests. DNA fingerprinting analysis was performed with the repetitive sequence-based polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) method using a DiversiLab device (bioMérieux)., Results: During the study, a total of 100 A. baumannii strains including 92 samples from 61 patients and 8 samples from the environment were isolated. All of the isolated strains were found to have multiresistance to antibiotics. DNA fingerprinting results showed that 7 of the 8 strains isolated from the environment were identical to many strains isolated from the patients. The greatest similarity between samples was found for 1 A. baumannii strain isolated from a computer keyboard, which was identical to the bacterium isolated from 17 other samples., Conclusion: A high level of similarity was found between strains isolated from the environment and patients, suggesting deficiencies in implementation of infection control measures.

Acinetobacter species can cause many types of hospital-acquired infection and play an important role in nosocomial pneumonia in intensive care units, skin and wound infections, and meningitis. They are of increasing importance because of their ability to rapidly develop resistance to the major groups of antibiotics. We aimed to determine the antibiotic sensitivity of Acinetobacter strains isolated from, and determined to be the cause of, hospital-acquired infections. A total of 156 cultures of Acinetobacter (strains of A. baumannii [136; 87.2%] and A. iwoffii [20; 12.8%]), were isolated from clinical samples taken from patients in different units of our hospital. Conventional bacterial identification methods and the Sceptor system were used. In the antibiotic sensitivity tests, A. baumannii was susceptible to imipenem (90.4%), norfloxacin (84.5%) and ciprofloxacin (65.4%), and A. iwoffii to amikacin (80.0%), ticarcillin/clavulanic acid (70.0%) and imipenem (60.0%).

Candida was isolated in 205 of 1060 clinical specimens (19.33%) in our laboratary sent from the intensive care unit for mycological investigation between January 98-December 99. All isolated strains were identified to species level using the API Candida system (Bio-Meieux, France) as follows; Candida albicans (n:115, 56.09%), Candida tropicalis (n:23, 11.21%), Candida parapsilosis (n:21, 10.24%), Candida glabrata (n:12, 5.83%). Candida kefyr (n:9, 4.39%), Candida lusitaniae (n:7, 3.41%), Candida famata (n:6, 2.92%), Candida krusei (n:6, 2.92%), Candida guilliermondii (n:6, 2.92%). These stains were identified using congo-red-glucose-brain-heart-infusion agar and slime production was determined in Candida albicans 53.91% and 67.77% in other than Candida species. In the present study, E test (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweeden) was used to test antifungal susceptibility. The resistance to amphotericin B was 19.51%, to fluconazole 27.31% and to flucytosine 20.00%.