[A nationwide study of the antimicrobial susceptibility of clinical isolates of Klebsiella sp. in Japan].

We have reported the antimicrobial susceptibility of clinical isolates of Escherichia coli in 1983 and 1984 to 4 antibiotics, ampicillin (ABPC), cefazolin (CEZ), cefmetazole (CMZ) and gentamicin (GM), in the previous report. In this paper, we described the antimicrobial susceptibility of Klebsiella sp. to the same antibiotics during the same period reported for E. coli before. Numbers of isolates tested were 1,671 strains in 1983 and 1,374 strains in 1984. We determined MICs of the 4 antibiotics against isolates by the standard method of the Japan Society of Chemotherapy. The most effective agent was GM among the 4 antibiotics. CMZ had a similar antimicrobial activity to GM. Resistance rates were low for both agents. CEZ had a fairly good antimicrobial activity, but it was less active than GM and CMZ. ABPC was not effective. There was neither significant annual change of antimicrobial activity of each agent against isolates nor an increasing tendency of resistant strains in the last 5 years. Depending on isolates from clinical materials, differences in the susceptibility were noted and there was a high ratio of resistant organisms among isolates from urine.