Htoutou Sedlakova Miroslava

Clinical impact of extended-spectrum beta-lactamases

The most frequent mechanism of resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics in Gram-negative bacteria is production of beta-lactamases. Those having serious clinical significance are mainly ESBL and AmpC broad-spectrum beta-lactamases and, recently, carbapenemases. For adequate antibiotic therapy of infections caused by producers of these enzymes, it is necessary to not only rapidly and correctly identify the etiological agents and their susceptibility to antibiotics but also detect the presence of these dangerous phenotypes of resistance. One of the objectives of this dissertation was to determine the sensitivity of phenotypic methods for detecting broad-spectrum beta-lactamases and carbapenemases and to select the most suitable ones for routine microbiology practice.