RESUMO
This study compares the susceptibility patterns of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli isolated from patients with hospital-acquired and outpatient infections. A total of 902 isolates of S. aureus and 1,114 of E. coli were collected in five different Estonian medical centers between January 1997 and November 1997. Strains were grouped into two different categories, depending on whether they had been obtained from inpatients or outpatients. Compared to S. aureus strains isolated from inpatients, the strains from outpatients were significantly more resistant to erythromycin (25.3% vs. 17.9%), tetracycline (33.5% vs. 22.4%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (13.9% vs. 7.9%). The overall prevalence of oxacillin-resistant S. aureus was 10.4%, with no significant differences noted between isolates recovered from inpatients and outpatients. In the case of E. coli, significantly more isolates from inpatients (42.8%) than from outpatients (34.4%) were ampicillin-resistant. Inpatient isolates of E. coli were also more resistant to cefotaxime (9.3%) and nitrofurantoin (11.2%) than outpatient strains (0% and 3.1%, respectively). Analysis showed remarkable co-resistance among both inpatient and outpatient strains of S. aureus and E. coli. Multiple resistant S. aureus and E. coli strains represented 15.1% and 17.3%, respectively of the organisms examined in this study. With respect to E. coli, significantly more multiresistant isolates were found in inpatient than outpatient isolates (20.4% vs. 8.9%). Our results indicate that the distinction between community-acquired and hospital infections due to S. aureus and E. coli may not be valid in Estonia.
