Nosocomial outbreak of Sphingomonas paucimobilis bacteraemia in an oncology and haematology unit

Abstract number: 1733_92

Kilic A., Senses Z., Kurekci A., Aydogan H., Basustaoglu A.C.

Objectives: The genus Sphingomonas is strictly aerobic, Gram-negative, rod-shaped, usually yellow-pigmented, and motile bacterium with polar flagellum. Sphingomonas paucimobilis strains have been isolated from hospital water systems, respiratory therapy equipment, and miscellaneous clinical specimens. Within a period of one month, we isolated six S. paucimobilis strains, including four from blood cultures of four patients' and two from hospital environment specimens from tap water and bathtub in an oncology and haematology unit.

Methods: All strains were identified by conventional methods and further by the API ID32GN system (bioMérieux, Marcy L'Etoile, France) as S. paucimobilis. We described here these strains' molecular epidemiological analyses by pulsed field gel electrophoresis and antibiotic susceptibilities by E-test.

Results: Despite clinical and environmental isolates yielded three different antibiotic resistances and pulsed field gel electrophoresis patterns, all clinical strains had identical by the both methods. We did not isolate clinical strain clone in healthcare workers and environmental samples as a source of infection.

Conclusion: It was concluded that S. paucimobilis strains could cause a potential outbreak in oncology and haematology units. Genotyping by PFGE is a useful identification technique for epidemiological investigation of outbreak caused by S. paucimobilis in oncology and haematology units.