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. © 2014 by the Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease.