Abstract: | Eleven thousand two hundred seventy-two Escherichia coli, 1109 Klebsiella pneumoniae, 1124 Salmonella enterica, and 602 Klebsiella oxytoca unrelated clinical isolates were obtained between 2001 and 2004 in a university hospital in Salamanca, Spain. One hundred thirteen E. coli (1%), 32 K. pneumoniae (2.9%), 4 K. oxytoca (0.66%), and 5 S. enterica (0.44%) isolates produced extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs). We obtained 42.2% of the ESBL-producing isolates from outpatients and 57.8% from inpatients. The most commonly detected ESBLs were CTX-M 14 (43.5% of ESBL-producing isolates), TEM-116 (22.1%), and SHV-2 (15.6%). A CTX-M 27-producing E. coli is 1st reported in Spain in this study. Two (20 isolates, 13%) or 3 (7 isolates, 4.5%) ESBLs were produced by 17.5% of ESBL-producing isolates (27 isolates). The most frequent combinations were CTX-M 14 + TEM-116 (5.7%), SHV-12 + TEM-116 (2.6%), and SHV-2 + CTX-M 14 + TEM-116 (2.6%). Clonal diversity was high even between isolates producing the same combinations of 2 or 3 beta-lactamases. |