Incidence of Nocardiosis among Patients with Lower Respiratory System infections

A total of 93patients suffering from lower respiratory tract infections, including tuberculosis (44) and bronchitis (49) were recorded from December 2012 to February 2013. The patients ranged from 10 to 98 years of age and 57 male and 36female. Culturing of sputum samples onto Sabouraud dextrose agar was performed to the isolation of Nocardia. A total of 27Nocardia genus were isolated from patients used in this study ; 5isolates were tuberculosis patients, 10 isolates were bronchitis patients, 5 isolates were tuberculosis and smoking patients, 1 isolate wase tuberculosis, smoking and diabetes mellitus patients, 2 isolates were bronchitis and diabetes mellitus patients and 4 isolates were bronchitis and smoking patients.The Nocardia isolates were showed the highest susceptibility against ofloxacin and ciprofloxacin and the lowest susceptibility against cefotaxime and erythromycin, but the isolates were resistant to oxacillin and rifampicin. Five isolates of Nocardia examined for susceptibility against eight hand sanitizer gels and eleven disinfectants. The results showed that the isolates of Nocardia were susceptibile against three hand sanitizer gels and nine disinfectants.