LAUSR

Cancer patients are prone to MRSA infection due to a number of factors including prolonged hospitalization, intravascular catheterization, compromised host immunity, malignancy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy surgery, prior antibiotic therapy and prolonged operative time. Among 468 Staphylococcus isolates, 283 were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates (MRSA), which indicated the occurrence and prevalence of MRSA isolates among cancer patients. The highest number of MRSA strains was isolated from male (124 isolates), female (90 isolates) followed by children (69 isolates), which represent 43.82, 31.80 and 24.38%, respectively, of all MRSA isolates. All S. aureus exhibited resistance to a higher number of antibiotics in common use. All isolates were oxacillin, cefoxitin (with MIC 256 to $${>}1024\,\upmu \,\hbox {g/mL}$$>1024μg/mL), clindamycin, penicillin, ceftriaxone, cephalothin and cefazolin (with MIC ranging between 128 and $${>}1024\,\upmu \,\hbox {g/mL}$$>1024μg/mL) resistant. 87.63% of MRSA isolates showed various multidrug-resistant profiles (MDRPs) toward more than one drug, and according to their MDRPs toward a panel of 17 antibiotics, MRSA strains were divided into seven patterns of resistance profiles. The existence of mecA gene corresponds to 100% with the methicillin phenotypic resistance in all MRSA isolates. The plasmid DNA profile of 85 multidrug-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) isolates showed that 42 isolates (49.41%) had plasmid bands.