Community acquired respiratory tract infections – etiological agents, antibiotic resistance and its clinical signs

Introduction: Community acquired lower respiratory tract infections (CA-LRTIs) are diseases with
high incidence and mortality. The phenomenon antibiotic resistance (ABR) in them requires deep
knowledge regarding its microbiological and clinical signs.
Aim: to study the main etiological agents and clinical indices of ABR in patients with CA-LRTIs.
Material and methods: during 5 year period 353 patients with community acquired pneumonia,
exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis were included and divided
into two compared groups – with sensitive (S) and resistant (R) isolates. We used sociological, clinical
and microbiological diagnostic methods.
Results: 72.7% of the patients were men, 27.3% – women average age 65.3±SD11.6. The most
common agents are from classes Enterobacteriaceae and Non-fermentative glucose bacteria,
Staphylococcus aureus, Moraxella catarrhalis, Streptococcus pneumoniae. Most of the patients –
56.1% had resistant to the tested antibiotics isolates. 56.4% of them were treated with antibiotics
before hospitalization. We established severe complications (empyema and sepsis) only in R group,
where etiological treatment according to the microbiological result was more often.
Conclusions: The antibiotic resistance exerts negative influence on main clinical indices of the CALRTIs.