Burkholderia cepacia complex: 11 years of surveillance in patients with Cystic Fibrosis in Posadas, Argentina

Cystic fibrosis patients with Burkholderia cepacia complex pulmonary infections have high morbidity and mortality. Worldwide, this disease is undergoing substantial epidemiological changes. Advances in the diagnosis and treatment have conditioned an increase in child survival as well as in the proportion of affected adults. In order to know our reality, we refer to an epidemiological study in 64 CF patients during 11 years of surveillance, focusing on infections caused by Burkholderia species. Conventional and automated phenotypic tests, restriction fragment length polymorphism-recA, recA gene sequencing, and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry were applied. Bacterial isolates were also tested for antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. The prevalence of Burkholderia cepacia complex was 9.4%. Based on recA gene sequencing, the most common species identified were Burkholderia cenocepacia (67.3%) and Burkholderia vietnamiensis (20.3%). Ceftazidime and meropenem were the most active, inhibiting 53% and 46% of isolates, respectively. This report represents the first systematic study of Burkholderia infections in our CF population since beginning of monitoring and treatment and highlights the importance of continued longitudinal studies.