Comparison of bacterial isolates cultured from hemodialysis patients and other patients with diabetic foot and their antimicrobial resistance.

The aim of this study was to compare microbial findings and their resistance to antibiotics between hemodialysis patients and patients without end-stage renal failure with diabetic foot infections. An 18-month-long descriptive study analyzed bacterial isolates obtained from 32 hemodialysis (HD) patients with diabetic foot infection in an Antakya hemodialysis center and 65 patients with diabetic foot infection admitted to the Education and Research Hospital of Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey. No significant difference in the mean number of pathogens per patient was found between the dialysis patients and other patients (2.3 vs. 2.1, respectively) (p > 0.05). While the occurrence of gram-positive bacteria in the HD patients was found to be 59.0%, this rate in the other patients was 53.1% (p > 0.05). While most frequent bacterial species isolated in the HD patients were S. aureus (22.9%), followed by coagulase-negative Staphylococcus spp. (CNS) (19.7%), the microorganisms in the other patients were found as CNS (20.7%), followed S. aureus (18.0%). The data recommend that antibiotic therapy in HD patients with diabetic foot infection should be more closely guided by culture findings and antimicrobial susceptibility results.