Susceptibility of adherent organisms from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from burn wounds to antimicrobial agents.

To assess the bactericidal effects of ciprofloxacin, netilymicin, and polymyxin B on adherent Pseudomonas aeruginosa organisms and also the bactericidal effects of ciprofloxacin, vancomycin and teicoplanin on adherent Staphylococcus aureus cells, a simple end-point microplate assay, based on the method described by Miyake et al. was used in the present study. As results of the assay, the minimal inhibitory concentration (MICADH) values are taken, which express the susceptibility of the bacterial cells spontaneously released from the surface of adherent microcolonies to antimicrobial agents. Also, a minimal bactericidal concentration (MBCADH) value was read, which is defined as the lowest antibiotic concentration required to kill the sessile bacterial cells. For twenty P. aeruginosa strains and nineteen S. aureus strains isolated from burn wounds, an enhanced resistance against bactericidal action of the applied antibiotics was observed when bacterial cells were attached to polystyrene surface. The MICADH values were comparable with the conventional MIC values only for ciprofloxacin and netilmicin for P. aeruginosa strains. The MBCADH values exceeded many times the conventional MBC values for the majority of strains. The validity of the assay was estimated in the experiment designed to determine the concentration of ciprofloxacin that should be released topically from the collagen dressing to prevent the biomaterial from microbial colonization and allow the decontamination of the wound.