Significance of Coagulase Negative Staphylococci with Special Reference to Species Differentiation and Antibiogram.

Coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS)are part of normal human flora increasingly recognized as significant nosocomial pathogens, infection often associated with implanted devices, joint prosthesis and different indwelling devices, especially in very young, old immunocompromised patients. Aims: To identify CoNS species, their distribution and antibiotic susceptibility pattern from different clinical samples. Method: A total 185 CoNS isolates were collected from various clinical samples followed for species identification by a practical scheme adapted using simple ,useful test selected from various references. Antibiotic susceptibility done by Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method. Results: The study yield that 185 CoNS,strains were isolated out of 1514 positive cultures from various clinical specimens. Among species ; S. epidermidis was the most commonly isolated species (68.65%), followed by S. heamolyticus (16.75%),followed by S. saprophyticus(9.8%)and few other species also identified. The antibiotic susceptibility pattern against commonly used antibiotic showed multidrug resistance with more than 90% resistance to penicillin and no strains was resistance to vancomycin. The methicillin resistance was 63% among all isolates of CoNS. Conclusions: Study suggest increasing pathogenic potential of CoNS as well as emerging of drug resistance amongst them, that necessitates the need to adopt simple laboratory procedure to identify CoNS species and understand definitive therapy for CoNS isolates from various clinical samples. This scheme was able to identified 98.9% isolates up to species level.