Treatment Challenges and Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance Stenotrophomonas maltophilia an Emerging Pathogen Isolated from Leafy Greens and Clinical Samples

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is a commensal and an emerging pathogen earlier noted in broad-spectrum life-threatening infections among the vulnerable, but more recently as a pathogen in immunocompetent individuals. In the current study, S. maltophilia was identified from 78% of vegetable samples. Bacterial population count ranged from 5.50 × 10^-1to 4.3 × 10^-4 cfu/g (mean 8.9 × 10⁵ cfu/g, median 7.75 × 10³ cfu/g). Based on a cross-sectional study performed during 2015-2016 n=35 and 2016-2017 n=55 S. maltophilia was isolated from clinical samples. The occurrence of S. maltophilia from clinical samples increased during 2016-2017 with a significant value of P=.0008. Out of the total of n=90 S. maltophilia, clinical isolates (35.28%) were from tracheal aspirates, followed by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (17.70%), sputum (15.20%), blood (16.82%), and urine (15.0%).  Sample sources were taken from different age groups of patients between 0-75 years. Almost all the isolates > 97% confirmed multiple drug resistance (MDR). Above 95% of the isolates are biofilm formers and the resistance rate increases among the biofilm formers.