An 8 year Microbe Base survey of the epidemiology, frequency and antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa hospital isolates in the United Kingdom.

Over the last 8 years selected United Kingdom hospitals have contributed antimicrobial susceptibility data to a central data base called Microbe Base. During that period, data on 1,000,067 isolates have been collected, including 29,425 isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The present study focused on the epidemiology, frequency and antibiotic susceptibility of P. aeruginosa isolates (17,440) from hospitalised patients. In such patients P. aeruginosa was predominant in general surgery (20%), care of the elderly (18%), general medicine (13%), and paediatrics and neonates (10%). Ninety-five per cent of P. aeruginosa were susceptible in vitro to ceftazidime compared with 93% for piperacillin, 92% for gentamicin. 90% for ciprofloxacin, and 89% for imipenem. Excluding susceptibility data reported in 1991, there was no change in the susceptibility pattern of P. aeruginosa throughout the study period.