Common Bacterial Isolates Associated With Neonatal Sepsis and Their Antimicrobial Profile: A Retrospective Study at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Background Neonatal sepsis is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality among neonates. There has been considerable geographic variation in causative pathogens and antimicrobial sensitivity profiles over time. This makes the continuous monitoring of patterns of emergence crucial for the effective implementation of antimicrobial therapy guidelines in an attempt to control antimicrobial resistance. Methods A retrospective study was conducted among neonates with sepsis admitted to King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between May 2011 and October 2018. The data were collected from medical records in the neonatal intensive care unit and analyzed using SPSS version 20 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results There were 246 neonates clinically diagnosed with sepsis, of whom 40 (16.26%) had positive blood cultures. In the blood cultures, coagulase-negative was the most prevalent microorganism (57.5%), followed by spp. (10%). , , , , and spp. each accounted for 5% of all isolates. Only single isolates of methicillin-resistant , and spp. (2.5% each) were detected in this study. Most of the isolated microorganisms exhibited high sensitivity to ampicillin and gentamicin. Conclusions This study points to a likely emergence of coagulase-negative as the main cause of sepsis among neonates. Ampicillin and gentamicin are highly effective against the commonly isolated bacterial pathogens that cause neonatal sepsis.