Microbiología de la peritonitis secundaria adquirida en la comunidad, Clínica CES

introduction: taking peritoneal fluid cultures during the first surgical intervention in patients with peritonitis is controversial due to its limited clinical utility. it is useful only in epidemiological studies. our work was done in order to determine which bacteria are more commonly found in community acquired secondary peritonitis and to disclose the resistance patterns of these pathogens to the more commonly used antibiotics at our institution. materials and methods: retrospective and descriptive study done in medellín, colombia, at clínica ces on patients that underwent surgery for secondary peritonitis from january 2005 through april 2010. culture samples analyzed were the ones taken in the first surgical intervention. results: we reviewed 319 clinical charts; among these, only 83 met the inclusion criteria. the principal cause of peritonitis was acute appendicitis (26%). there was no growth in 49% of the cultures taken. in cultures with bacterial growth, the most common isolate was e. coli (24%). resistance to the antibiotic empirically used was 16%. e.coli showed high resistance rates to trimetropimsulfamethoxazol, ampicillin, ciprofloxacillin, ampicillin/ sulbactam, and gentamicin. discussion: taking samples for culture during the first intervention does not modify the definitive antibiotic therapy, and much frequently many of them do not produce isolate. there were high rates of resistance to trimetropimsulfametoxazol, ampicillin, ciprofloxacillin, ampicillin/sulbactam and gentamicin, thus they should not be used as empiric therapy. taking samples for culture at first surgical intervention is useful to identify local flora and resistance patterns.