European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Aim: To studybiofilm production by Pseudomonas aeruginosaon endotracheal tubing in the presence of bacteriophage and sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem.Methods and Results: A total of 20 clinical isolates of P.aeruginosa obtained from endotracheal samples were taken for this study. Bacteriophages were obtained from sewage samples from sewage water treatment plant. Biofilm assay was performed by modified O’Toole and Kolter method wherein a piece of sterile 0.5cm2 ETTwas incorporated into the microtitre plate wells. Student’s unpaired t test, Kruskal Wallis, ANOVA and HSD Tukey’s test were used to analyse data with SPSS 17.0 software. P value of ˂0.05 was considered statistically significant.Of the 20 isolates, only four (20%) of the isolates were resistant to imipenem. In the presence of bacteriophage, the biofilm production was very less in comparison to biofilm production in the presence of sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem or in plain broth (p = 0.004). Conclusions: Bacteriophages effectively reduced the biofilm production by P. aeruginosa on catheter tip. Significance and Impact:The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of using bacteriophage as a biofilm reducing agent. Further studies are required to prove the use of bacteriophage coated ETT to curb hospital acquired infections

Background: Most laboratories do not have facilities for identification of mycobacteria to species level. BD MGIT TBc immunochromatographic strip differentiates mycobacteria grown in liquid media as MTC or NTM. In the present study we clinically correlate NTM identified by above method. Methods: Culture was done by BD BACTEC TMMGIT 960. All positive cultures were subjected to a BD MGIT TBc immunochromatographic strip method for differentiating MTC and NTM. Results: Of the 29 cases of suspected NTM there was a single case of UTI, a case of right frontal lobe abscess, a case of synovitis, a case of post hernioplasty infected mesh and 25 patients were having respiratory symptoms. All patients responded well to antibiotic therapy which included ATT, fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins, azithromycin, clarithromycin singly or in combination. Conclusions: Diagnosis of NTM done with BD MGIT TBc immunochromatographic card test was found to useful in the absence of a definitive species identification.