Prevalence and Antibiotic Sensitivity Profile of Bacteria in Patients with Ear Infections

Abstract

Ear infections are extremely common and widespread otological disorders in children and adults. Accordingly, it is critical to identify the etiological factors and determine their antimicrobial susceptibility to achieve successful clinical outcomes. Ear swab samples were collected from patients aged 10-69 years at the Al-Sadar Teaching Hospital in Al-Amara city and cultured using the standard microbiological methods. The VITEK 2-compact system was used to analyze the bacterial isolates. A total of 100 samples were obtained; ear infection was slightly elevated in men (58%), but this was not significant. A significantly higher incidence of ear infection was observed in the patients aged 10–19 years (P≤ 0.05). Of the 100 examined ear swab samples, 76 yielded positive culture results, and of these, 61 were axenic and 15 were mixed. Among the 91 retrieved bacterial isolates, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (24/91, 26.3%) and Staphylococcus aureus (21/91, 23%) were the common causative agents of ear infection, while Haemophilus influenzae (2/91, 2.19%) and Staphylococcus hominis (1/91, 1.09%) were less common. Most bacterial isolates showed high sensitivity to imipenem and amikacin (87.9% and 79.1%, respectively; P≤ 0.01), followed by ciprofloxacin and gentamicin (67% and 60.4%, respectively; P≤ 0.05), and low sensitivity to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and ampicillin (15.3% and 6.6%, respectively). Multidrug resistance was observed in most of the isolates.