BACTERIOLOGICAL TRENDS AND CULTURE – SENSITIVITY PATTERNS OF BURN WOUNDS AT BURN UNIT, MAYO HOSPITAL, LAHORE

Objectives: To determine the pattern of bacterial gro-wth over time and to devise an antibiogram based on sensitivities to antibiotics in burn wounds of patients amitted in burn unit admitted to burn unit, Mayo hospital, Lahore.Design: Descriptive case series. Place and Duration of Study: Burn unit of Mayo Hospital Lahore from august 2013 to august 2014. Patients and Methods: All consecutive burn patients admitted within 72 hours of their injury from August 2013 to August 2014 were included. Patients who died before the 2nd culture were excluded from the study. 181 culture reports of 79 burn patients with burn areas between 5 and 70 % were studied. Cultures were sent on the third day of burn and then weekly. The reports were scrutinized for organism type and antibiotic sen-sitivity. The shift in organism pattern on subsequent cultures was noted.Results: Of the 79 patients 44 were females and 35 were males. 61 were flame burns, 7 were acid burns while 11 were high voltage electric contact and flash burns. Mean age of patients was 33.22 ± 12.74 years and mean percentage of burn surface area was 33.18 ± 13.33%. All patients had mixed thickness burns mostly deep partial thickness variety. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common pathogen isolated on initial cultures (68.18%). Pseudomonas aeruginosa (28.46%) and enterobacteraciae (26.15%) were the most com-mon isolates on subsequent cultures. Tazobactam / Piperacillin (35.32% of organisms) followed by Cefpe-razone / Sulbactam (19.27% of organisms) and Ami-kacin (16.97% of organisms) were the most sensitive antibiotics on culture and sensitivity.Conclusion: Our study shows that the microbial profile of a burn wound shifts from an initial predomi-nantly gram positive isolate to a later predominantly gram negative isolate. Also Tazobactam/Piperacillin was found to be the most sensitive antibiotic on culture and sensitivity in our study.