Prevalence and Antibiotic Susceptibility of Ureaplasma spp. and Mycoplasma hominis Strains in Sexually Active Women in Romania

Mycoplasma hominis and Ureaplasma spp. are frequently found in the genital tract, especially in sexually active women, pregnant or not, with a negative impact on health and outcome of pregnancy. The retrospective study investigates the prevalence of colonization/infection with genital mycoplasmas in women and the antibiotic susceptibility profile of the isolated strains. From August 2011 till July 2017, 931 endo-cervical samples were analyzed. Mycoplasma IST2 kit (Biomerieux) was used for culture, identification, indicative enumeration and antibiotic susceptibility testing. Culture was positive in 38.5% of the samples. Ureaplasma predominated, Mycoplasma being detected mostly in association with Ureaplasma, seldom alone. Overall, the level of resistance to quinolones was high (77% for ciprofloxacin, 55% for ofloxacin), whilst that of resistance to tetracyclines only started to rise. Some Ureaplasma strains showed resistance to three classes of antibiotics. For erythromycin, a particular trend was noticed, with a drop of resistance level during the study, but with recent re-emergence of resistant Ureaplasma strains. Pristinamicin resistance was not encountered. Tetracyclines are still the antibiotics of choice for these infections. As the rising trend of resistance to several classes of antibiotics might become problematic over the next decades, antibiotic susceptibility of the strains should be assessed prior to the initiation of treatment.