Background; Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis is a common bacterial infection in patients with cirrhosis and ascities with in-hospital mortality rates ranging from 20 to 30%. Early diagnosis and a prompt antibiotic therapy have considerably decreased the mortality rate and this study was done to determine drug resistance pattern among causative organisms of SBP. Objective; To determine the frequency of different causative organisms of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) and their sensitivity pattern in patients with liver cirrhosis. Material and Methods; A total of 183 patients with liver cirrhosis having SBP were included in this descriptive cross-sectional study. The study was conducted at department of Medicine. Patients were subjected to ascitic fluid tap, under aseptic measures by inserting a needle of 22 / 18 gauge in the left flank of abdomen. Ten ml of ascitic fluid was aspirated in a heparinised disposable syringe; which was immediately inoculated into blood culture bottle at bedside and send for bacterial culture and causative organisms was tested for their antibiotic drug resistance pattern. Data was entered and analyzed by computer program SPSS-18. Results; Of these 183 study cases, 103 (56.3%) were male patients while 80 (43.7%) were female patients. Mean age of our study cases was 51.73 ± 9.28 years. Previous history of use of antibiotics before 72 hours was noted in 103 (56.3%), anti – HCV was positive in 103 (56.3%) while HBs Ag was positive in 13.7% of our study cases. Among these study cases, E.coli was noted in 135 (73.8%), Staph. Aureus in 17.5% and Klebsiella was noted in 8.7%. Chloramphenicol was resistant in 24 (13.1%), ampicillin was resistant in 143 (78.1%), co – trimoxazole in 61.2%, ciprofloxacin in 55.7%, Ofloxacin in 56.3%, Cefotaxime was resistant in 78.1% and amoxicillin was resistant in 74.9%. Conclusion; Our study results have indicated that E.coli was major causative organisms among patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis having cirrhosis of liver followed by staphylococcus aureus and klebsiella. High degree of drug resistance was observed among these strains in our study which points towards well directed efforts of our health policy makers to adopt certain guidelines regarding use of these drugs in our population. Keywords; Cirrhosis, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, E. coli
