ABSTRACT
Background: Wound infections continue to be a causeof concern as they can delay healing and cause woundbreakdown. Their effective treatment demands quickisolation and identification of causative organisms withappropriate antibiotic sensitivity pattern. Material andMethods: Wound swab and pus samples received frominpatient as well as outpatient department of all agegroups and both genders were processed usingconventional media as well as chromogenic medium(HiCrome UTI) and results of both were compared.Antibiotic sensitivity testing was done on Vitek 2Compact automated system. Results: Among 342samples, 77% showed growth. Fifty eight percentagewere Gram negative and 42% were Gram positiveorganisms. Polymicrobial growth was seen in 11% ofsamples. HiCrome UTI isolated all organisms inculture. Colony characteristics and colour of all isolateson HiCrome UTI were comparable to theiridentification on Vitek 2 Compact. Among the Grampositive organisms, commonest was MethicillinSensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA 42%)followed by Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcusaureus (MRSA 33%), Enterococcus faecalis (10%),Staphylococcus epidermidis (8%), Staphylococcushaemolyticus (3%), Streptococcus pyogenes (2%) andStreptococcus agalactiae (2%). Most of the Grampositive organisms were sensitive to vancomycin,teicoplanin, linezolid and clindamycin The commonGram negative organisms were E. coli (36%),Klebsiella pneumoniae (20%), Pseudomonasaeruginosa (18%), Proteus mirabilis (7%),Enterobacter cloacae (6%) and Acinetobacterbaumannii (4%). Most of the Gram negative organismswere sensitive to cefepime, beta lactams-betalactamase inhibitors, aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones. Conclusion: Gram-negative organismspredominated in our study. HiCrome UTI agar can beused as a cost-effective approach for rapid isolation ofall organisms. It gives definite identification ofcommon organisms and thus reduces turn-around-timefor the same. It provides presumptive identification ofinfrequent organisms which can be further confirmedby simple biochemical tests. Hence these properties ofHiCrome UTI agar help serve the purpose especiallyfrom mixed cultures and in resource constraint settings