Objective: In recent years, enterococci have become increasingly resistant to a wide range of antimicrobial agents. The aim of this study was to identify the species isolated from the urine cultures of hospitalized patients at Cukurova University Medical Faculty Balcalı Hospital, Adana, Turkey. and determine antimicrobial susceptibility rates of enterococcus strains.

Materials and Methods: In this study, a total of 536 enterococcus strains isolated from the urine cultures of the patients hospitalized, and treated in Balcalı Hospital of Çukurova University Faculty of Medicine between January 2012 and April 2014 were typed and antibiotic resistance rates of these isolated were determined Identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing of the enterococci strains were performed using Vitek-2 automated system (BioMérieux, France).

Results: Of these isolated strains 277 (51.6%) were identified as Enterococcus faecalis, 249 (46.4%) as Enterococcus faecium, five (0.9%) as Enterococcus avium, two (0.3%) as Enterococcus durans, two (0.3%) as Enterococcus gallinarum and one (0.1%) as Enterococcus hirae. The rates of resistance were 98.1% to trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, 97% to clindamycin, 84.2% to ampicillin, 83.2% to erythromycin, 83.2% to imipenem, 73.3% to tetracycline, 66.6% to ciprofloxacin, 65.1% to moxifloxacin, 14.7% to vancomycin, 14.3% to teicoplanin, 4.8% to linezolid and 0.3% to tigecycline. High level aminoglycoside resistance was detected as 9.3 % for only gentamicin and 17.5% for only streptomycin.

Conclusion: In this study, glycopeptide resistant enterococcus strains were detected. Thus,resistance to vancomycin and teicoplanin detected in our hospital demonstrates that these antibioticst should be used cautiously in the treatment of enterococcal infections in our center.