Iranian Journal of Medical Microbiology

Background and Aim: Acinetobacter baumannii is opportunistic, gram negative, aerobic and nonfermentative coccobacilli. It is difficult to control and eradicate these bacteria, because of increased resistance to last-line antibiotic therapy and high peripheral resistance. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of integron  and its relationship with the antibiotic resistance in A. baumannii.

Materials and Methods: 100 isolates of A. baumannii were gathered since 2012-2013 from ICU of three educational hospitals of Hamadan,Iran. After phenotypic identification of strains, they were confirmed with amplification of the blaOXA-51 gene by PCR. Antibiotic susceptibility pattern of isolates was determined by disk agar diffusion (DAD) method.. The presence of class 1, 2 and 3 integrons were analyzed using the PCR method.

Results: The most antibiotic resistance pattern was observed to ceftazidime (98%) and the highest sensitivity was seen to colistin sulfate (99%) and tigecycline (88%). Prevalence of integron class 1 and 2 were 97% and 31%, respectively. Class 3 integron was found in any of the isolates.

Conclusions: In this study, a very high resistance to different classes of antibiotic and high prevalence of class 1 integron was detected in A. baumannii. Statistical analysis showed association of class 1 integron with drug resistant in this bacterium. Also no significant relationship between antibiotic resistance and the presence of class 2 integron was found in statistical analysis.