Haematologica, Vol 91, Issue 8, 1134-1138
Copyright © 2006 by Ferrata Storti Foundation
An 18-case outbreak of drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteriemia in hematology patients
JB Micol,
S de Botton,
R Guieze,
V Coiteux,
S Darre,
R Dessein,
O Leroy,
I Yakoub-Agha,
B Quesnel,
F Bauters,
G Beaucaire,
and
S Alfandari
Service des Maladies du Sang, CHRU, Lille, France.
We retrospectively identified an outbreak of 18 episodes of P. aeruginosa bacteriemia in 17 patients with hematologic malignancies in 2004. All strains were ticarcillin I/R, 77% ciprofloxacin I/R, 72% ceftazidime I/R, 72% amikacin I/R and 50% imipenem I/R. The outbreak was multiclonal. Colistin was employed for documented therapy in ten cases including seven in which it was the only active drug. Outcomes were resolution of infection in 12 out of 18 episodes (67%), and death in six cases, five (25%) of which were attributable to the infection. Colistin was useful even in highly resistant strains and the efficacy of antibacterial therapy was similar (57%)in bacteriemia due to strains only susceptible to colistin.
