Post-mortem Bacteriological Examination on the Heart Blood of Aborted Fetuses in a Major Teaching Hospital, Shiraz, Iran, 2016-2017

Background and Objectives: Fetal abortion is one of the important and controversial issues in scientific, social and academic ceremonies of the most societies which occur due to known and unknown reasons. To find out the reason of abortion, researchers have used many methods. Post-mortem bacteriology exams are either ignored in most healthcare centers or done to a limited degree at best. Post-mortem bacteriology examination is still under debate which needs more attention; hence, updating our knowledge about isolated bacteria, their antibiotic resistance pattern and related factors is essential for the design and implementation of appropriate interventions.Materials and Methods: In this study, a blood sample was taken percutaneously from the heart blood of aborted fetuses 1-15 hours after birth and transferred to the microbiology laboratory of the hospital, cultured and evaluated for antibiotic susceptibility patterns. Results: Out of 153 cases, a total of 82 cultures were positive. The most common isolated organism was Acinetobacter with a frequency of 41.5%. The highest degree of antibiotic resistance belonged to Cefixime (68.2%) followed by Amikacin (63.6%), Gentamicin (63.6%) and Ciprofloxacin (56.1%). For Gram positive isolates, the least effective antibiotic was Ciprofloxacin by resistance frequency of 62.5%, and the most effective antibiotic was Tetracycline. Conclusion: Postmortem bacteriologic analyses can be a useful and important component of post-mortem exams; they have been either ignored in most healthcare centers or done to a limited degree at best. However, a hospital in our region does it routinely for all aborted fetuses. Therefore, we conducted this study as the first study reporting the result of post-mortem bacteriologic status of aborted fetuses and evaluated their antibiotic resistance profiles.