Bacterial pathogens (non-Mycobacterium) from sputum culture and antimicrobial susceptibility.

Sputum culture of patients at Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok was 49.84% positive for bacterial pathogens in 1994 and 40.95% in 1995. The average incidence of gram-negative rods was 3.11 fold more than the combination of gram-positive cocci and gram-negative cocci. The most common gram-negative rod was Pseudomonas aeruginosa, followed by either Klebsiella pneumoniae or Acinetobacter anitratus depending on year. The most common coccus was Staphylococcus aureus. From both years, the number of Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Burkholderia pseudomallei and Nocardia spp isolated were 122, 93, 13 and 11 strains respectively. For antimicrobial susceptibility, P. aeruginosa was sensitive to ceftazidime, imipenem, gentamicin, amikacin, netilmicin, ciprofloxacin (range 56-89%). S. aureus (MSSA) was sensitive to common used drugs. S. aureus (MRSA) was sensitive to co-trimoxazole, fosfomycin, vancomycin (range 57-100%) and resistant to most drugs.