Increasing incidence of nosocomial Chryseobacterium indologenes infections in Taiwan

To understand the clinical features, antimicrobial therapy and epidemiology of Chryseobacterium indologenes infections, the medical records of 36 patients with nosocomial Chryseobacterium indologenes infections seen over a three-year period al National Taiwan University Hospital were reviewed. The 36 isolates recovered from these patients were studied by molecular typing and determination of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Nine patients had underlying neoplastic diseases, seven had diabetes mellitus, five had burn wounds, and four had uremia. The clinical syndrome included ten patients with intraabdominal infections, nine with wound sepsis, six with intravascular catheter-related bacteremia, and four with ventilator-associated pneumonia. Thirteen patients had monomicrobial bacteremia, and four had polymicrobial bacteremia. Nineteen patients (53%) developed infections associated with various indwelling devices, The deaths of five patients (14%) were directly attributable to infection with Chryseobacterium indologenes, All isolates recovered showed a wide range of resistance to commonly used antimicrobial agents. The random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) patterns of the isolates differed from each other indicating the absence of epidemiological relatedness among these isolates. Nosocomial infection caused by multiresistant Chryseobacterium indologenes appears to be an emerging problem in Taiwan and should be studied further.