ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Surgical site infections (SSI) are one of the terrifying nosocomial infections that affecting surgical patients and cause a compromise to the quality of health care provided in the hospital. Nearly 5% of people who undergo surgeries might develop SSI, which can have serious consequences and even be deadly. To identify the microbiological profile of explant AIM: culture from suture materials and its correlation in development of SSI in the same patient. Infected and non-infected METHODOLOGY: suture materials that were removed aseptically from the patients were collected and transported to the Microbiology laboratory in sterile BHI broth.With the isolated colonies obtained. Identification was performed by standard microbiological technique and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was done. The culture reports of the swab collected from the pus/ exudate from the surgical site and the suture were compared. This was a prospective cross sectional study for a duration of 6 months. A sum of 190 isolates RESULTS: were obtained from 182 suture samples. 156(86%) suture materials had growth [monomicrobial (70%) polymicrobial growth (16%)] while 26(14%) had no growth. 7 different suture materials were employed in this study. Isolated organisms were gram positive bacilli (n=20), gram positive cocci (n=82), gram negative bacilli (n=87) and fungi (n=1). Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae (n=19) and CONS (n=71) were commonly isolated gram negative organisms. The least common organism grown colonizing the suture material was Klebsiella oxytoca, Citrobacter species, Candida species, Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus species (n=1, 0.5%). Isolates like Escherichia coli (n=5), Klebsiella pneumoniae (n=2) and Acinetobacter species, Staphylococcus aureus (n=1) were found to have multiple drug resistance in the suture thread culture. SSI was seen eight cases (4.3%) and in two of them, the microorganism isolated from the surgical site and suture material was identical. Out of 190 isolates in this study, 96 DISCUSSION isolates (CONS-71, Streptococcus-4, Diphtheriods-2, Aerobic spore bearers-18, Candida-1) were members of normal flora of the skin which shows 50.5% of the suture materials were colonized by normal flora. The current study shows that ability of bacteria to adhere varies between different suture materials. Overall, the adhesion of bacteria to 3-0 Ethilon (10.4%) was found to be lower compared to 3-0 vicryl No 1,3 Prolene, 2-0 Ethilon and Silk. Suture thread must be taken out as soon as possible since opportunistic infections could result from the skin's regular flora.