Bacteriological profile and antibiotic susceptibility of diabetic Foot infections at Ribat University hospital; a retrospective study from Sudan.

PURPOSE: Diabetic foot infection (DFI) is one of the most feared complications of diabetes. In Sudan, the number of cases and the problems associated with diabetic foot infections increased in recent years. This study aimed to assess the bacteriological profile of patients with DFIs and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern.
METHODS: A descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out at Surgery Department of Ribat University Hospital. All medical records of patients with DFIs during the period from September 2017 to February 2019 were reviewed using data collection sheet. The collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences.
RESULTS: Out of 250 DFI patients, 73.2% of them were males, and 86.4% of them had type 2 diabetes mellitus, and most of them suffered from diabetes for more than 10 years. Regarding culture results, 64.7% and 35.3% of the samples revealed presence of single microorganism and mixed infections, respectively. A total of 335 bacterial isolates were identified, gram-negative were more prevalent than gram-positive organisms. The most frequently isolated organisms were Proteus spp. Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli. Furthermore, antibiotic susceptibility pattern showed that imipenem, amikacin and vancomycin have the highest activity against isolated bacteria, and all isolates were found to be completely resistant to different cephalosporin drugs.
CONCLUSION: Among the studied samples, gram-negative bacteria were found to be more common in DFI patients, Proteus spp. and S. aureus were the most common microorganisms. Moreover, different isolated microorganisms showed to have different degrees of resistance and sensitivity to various antibacterial drugs. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.