[Studies on respiratory infections in primary care clinic (II). Distribution and antibiotic sensitivity to 45 agents of bacteria isolated from patients with respiratory infections visiting a doctor in private practice].

The bacteriology of the isolates from the sputum or the throat swab of patients with respiratory infections visiting a doctor in private practice in Sendai city during the period from March in 1988 to February in 1989 was documented, and their sensitivity to 45 antimicrobial agents was determined. Of the 568 patients, 514 cases had acute pharyngitis, 8 cases each had acute tonsillitis and acute bronchitis, 7 cases were acute pneumonia, 6 cases had herpangina, 18 cases had hand-foot-mouth disease with the signs of respiratory infections, 5 cases had varicella with the signs of respiratory infections and 2 cases were mumps with the signs of respiratory infections. Three hundred strains of potential (greater than or equal to 10(7) CFU/ml) pathogens were recovered from 293 of the 568 cases, which consisted of 124 strains of Haemophilus influenzae, 58 strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae, 45 strains of Staphylococcus aureus, 26 strains of Branhamella catarrhalis, 25 strains of Streptococcus pyogenes, 9 strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae and 13 strains of other species, not including non-fermentile gram-negative bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter calcoaceticus. Staphylococcus aureus and other strains were documented simultaneously in 6 out of 7 cases in which multi-organisms were recovered. Many strains of Staphylococcus aureus were isolated from young patients throughout the year. On the other hand many strains of Branhamella catarrhalis were isolated from elderly patients in winter. The sensitivity of 45 antimicrobial agents of 231 of 300 strains was determined by sensitivity disks (EIKEN, Japan). No strain of the Haemophilus influenzae in this study was resistant to ampicillin. None of the Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus pyogenes was resistant to ampicillin or cefazolin. None of the Staphylococcus aureus was resistant to cloxacillin, cefazolin, gentamicin or ofloxacin. We conclude from the above results that antibiotic-resistant strains are found presumably only in a very few cases in primary care clinic.