Abstract

Objective: To investigate drug resistance of various strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria isolated from female patients with urinary tracts infections (UTIs) in Shalamzar, Iran. Methods: This study was conducted from April 2011 to April 2012 on 150 female patients with positive urine culture and 105 CFU/mL colony count. The pattern of antibiotic sensitivity was recognized using antibiogram by the disc diffusion method. Results: The results revealed that the predominant bacterium was E. coli (90%), followed by Klebsiella pneumonia (3%). Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole is the initial medicine to treat UTIs (without complications) which demonstrated relatively poor activity against E. coli (with 40% sensitivity), though alternative medicines such as nitrofurantoin (97% sensitivity) and ciprofloxacin (91% sensitivity) showed good activity against E. coli as well. Conclusions: The findings emphasized the necessity of pursuing the investigations in national and local governments in order to retain the efficacy of treating UTIs using effective antibiotics.

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