Efficacy of Colorimetric Method for Identification of Organisms causing Burn Wound Infection and Their Pattern of Antimicrobial Susceptibility at Ain Shams University Hospitals

Abstract

Burn wound infections are one of the most dangerous burn complications because they are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in burn patients. Their successful treatment necessitates the rapid isolation and identification of causative species using antibiotic susceptibility patterns that are acceptable. It has been established that the conventional method is the gold standard for culturing of wound isolates. However, in the past few years, the chromogenic agar medium is being increasingly used as a primary culture tool for identification, easier recognition of mixed growth and reduction in number of biochemical tests. All these factors have direct impact on ultimate cost reduction. This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of the chromogenic medium (HiChrome universal medium) in comparison to conventional method in identification of organisms causing burn wound infections regarding time, accuracy and cost and profiling of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of burn wound isolates. Eighty-three wound samples were collected from inpatient and ICU patients at Ain Sham University Burn Unit. All the wound swabs were analysed using conventional media and chromogenic medium (HiCrome Universal medium) to