Antimicrobial Sensitivity Pattern in Surgical PatientsAdmitted to Intensive Care Unit, Northwest Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

-Antimicrobial resistance is challenging for the health care professionals especially in intensive care unit. Most of the hospitals in developing countries yet to understand this phenomenon in order to succeed in antimicrobial therapy among the critically ill patients. The present study aimed to investigate the commonly available bacteria in ICU and antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of those bacteria in King Khalid Hospital, Tabuk, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study has recruited 85 surgical patients admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) and bacterial isolation was carried out from their blood samples. Over all, gram negative bacteria is most common isolated in the study site (54%). However, 42% staphylococcus was isolated from the blood culture of the study population. Gram negative bacteria divided into two categories as enterobacteriaceae species and nonenterobacteriaceaespecies. Staphylococcus species is the most common isolated bacteria found to have higher sensitive to ceftriaxone, aztreonam, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, colisitin, amikacin, cefepime, nitrofurantoin;however, high resistance was evident tocarbapenemantimicrobials (meropenem, ertapenem, imipenem) and fluroquinolones.Acinetobacter second common isolated bacteria only sensitive to colistin and sulphamethoxazole + trimethoprim antimicrobials. Antimicrobials sensitivity pattern highly differs between enterobacteriaceae and non-enterobacteriaceae bacteria’s. Hence, the careful selection of antimicrobials is recommended in order to succeed in antimicrobial therapy.