MICROBIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF BRONCHOALVEOLAR LAVAGE IN PATIENTS WITH NOSOCOMIAL PNEUMONIA IN NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

Introduction: Intensive Care Units (ICU) are a major threat to nosocomial pneumonias with children being the most common victims of pneumonia. It is defined as manifestation of infection after 48 hours of hospital admission which can be also attributed to any procedures done to the patient. Aim: To find out the bacteriological profile in pulmonary involvement in the ICU setup and to determine the sensitivity patterns of these bacteria to the antibiotics by doing Bronchoalveolar Lavage (BAL). Materials and methods: Present study was a retrospective study conducted on children aged upto 1 month, who were admitted and ventilated for more than 48 hours and developed ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) as per CDC criteria with the data collected between a one year period from June 2020 to June 2021 and was conducted at a pediatric tertiary care centre of GMC Srinagar, India. The study included 34 BAL samples received in the laboratory from these patients. Results and discussion: The most common bacteria found out from the 34 BAL specimens was Acinetobacter baumanii which accounted to 16 samples (47%) of the entire sample size. It was followed by Klebsiella pneumonia from 8 samples