Ana Kaftandzieva¹, Zhaklina Cekovska¹, Igor Kaftandziev², Milena Petrovska¹, Nikola Panovski<sup>1

1</sup>Institute of Microbiology and Parasitology, Medical Faculty, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; ²University Clinic of Traumatology, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

Aim: To determine the most common bacteria isolated from wound specimens and to compare those culture results to Gram stain slides.

Material and methods: A total of 1970 specimens from 1788 patients, treated in the University Clinics in Skopje during a one year period were examined by standard microbiology techniques (inoculation onto standard agar media and direct Gram-stained smears). Automatized Vitek system was used for identification of all anaerobes.

Results: Out of a total of 1970 specimens, 1094 (55.5 %) were positive by culture. A total of 1462 strains were isolated: 753 Gram positive (Gram+), 661 Gram negative (Gram-) and 48 anaerobic bacteria. The number of specimens yielding one, two or more different strains was 788, 244 and 62, respectively. Gram + bacteria, in 44.7 % of positive samples were a single isolate. The most commonly isolated potential pathogen was Staphylococcus. In 23.7% samples, Gram negative bacteria were a single isolate (E. coli was the most common isolate). 1094 specimens were positive by culture, 419 (38.3%) were positive by both culture and Gram stain and 675 (61.7%) were negative by Gram stain (leukocytes were present in 276 specimens). 876 specimens were negative by culture, 789 (90%) were negative by both culture and Gram stain (leukocytes were present in 271 specimen) and 87 (9.9%) were positive only by Gram stain.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrated only a 38.3 % of microbiological correlation between Gram stain and culture. This data makes the clinical utility of Gram stain for the microbiological analysis of wounds questionable.

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Citation: Kaftandzieva A, Cekovska Zh, Kaftandziev I, Petrovska M, Panovski N. Bacteriology of Wound - Clinical Utility of Gram Stain Microscopy and the Correlation with Culture. Maced J Med Sci. 2012 Mar 15; 5(1):72-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/MJMS.1957-5773.2012.0201.
Key words: wound, Gram stain slide.
Correspondence: Ana Kaftandzieva. Institute of Microbiology and Parasitology, Medical Faculty, University “Ss Cyril and Methodius”, 50 Divizija No. 6 , 1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. Tel: ++ 389 2 3109829, Fax: ++ 389 2 3214317. E-mail: akaftandzieva@yahoo.com
Received: 25-Sep-2011; Revised: 05-Dec-2011; Accepted: 14-Dec-2011; Online first: 27-Feb-2012
Copyright: © 2012 Kaftandzieva A. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
 

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