Abstract: Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a major public health problem in India and worldwide. One of its most common and feared complications is Diabetic foot infections (DFIs), which, if neglected, very often terminate in limb amputation. Limb-threatening DFIs are usually polymicrobial. Proper management of these infections requires appropriate antimicrobial selection based on culture and antimicrobial susceptibility results; however, initial management comprises empirical antimicrobial therapy. Knowledge of likely etiologic agents can help guide this decision and result in limb salvage.
AIM of study: To study the common clinical presentation of DFIs, isolate the organisms responsible and to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of the isolates.
Materials and methods: During the period from Aug 2016-July2018, age, sex, clinical presentation of diabetic foot infections noted and pus and tissue samples were taken from the affected feet of 100 DFI patients and subjected to smear microscopy, culture & sensitivity. The antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the isolates was done by Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method.
Results: Most of the study patients males 70%, mean age 58years presented with advanced clinical features such as ulcer (56%), limb cellulitis (22%), Gangrene (14%) and abcess 8%. Overall, the most common isolate was Staphylococcus aureus (26%) second most common organism is klebsiella. Gram negative organisms (62%) were isolated more frequently than gram positive organisms (38%). Gram positive isolates showed 100% sensitivity towards linezolid. All the major groups of organisms showed high sensitivity towards third generation cephalosporins. High sensitivity towards imepenem, meropenem, and other newer generation antimicrobials including piperacillin-tazobactum, tigecycline and colistin was noted among the gram negative isolates.
