Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (May 2012)

Changing the epidemiology of carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a Brazilian teaching hospital: the replacement of São Paulo metallo-β-lactamase-producing isolates

  • Felipe Lira de Sá Cavalcanti,
  • Anna Carolina Soares Almeida,
  • Marinalda Anselmo Vilela,
  • Marcia Maria Camargo de Morais,
  • Marcos Antonio de Morais Junior

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762012000300019
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 107, no. 3
pp. 420 – 423

Abstract

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In Brazil, carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates are closely related to the São Paulo metallo-β-lactamase (SPM) Brazilian clone. In this study, imipenem-resistant isolates were divided in two sets, 2002/2003 and 2008/2009, analysed by pulsed field gel electrophoresis and tested for the Ambler class B metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) genes blaSPM-1, blaIMP and blaVIM. The results show a prevalence of one clone related to the SPM Brazilian clone in 2002/2003. In 2008/2009, P. aeruginosa isolates were mostly MBL negative, genetically diverse and unrelated to those that had been detected earlier. These findings suggest that the resistance to carbapenems by these recent P. aeruginosa isolates was not due to the spread of MBL-positive SPM-related clones, as often observed in Brazilian hospitals.

Keywords