Analysis and Clinical Correlation of Bacteria Cultured from Patients with Inflammatory Acne

Han, Jung Hyun; Yun, Sook Jung; Lee, Jee Bum; Kim, Seong Jin; Lee, Seung Chul; Won, Young Ho

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Acne is a common follicular inflammatory dermatosis affecting the pilosebaceous unit. The representative organism isolated from the acne lesion is Propionibacterium acnes, but other aerobic organisms, such as Staphylococcus epidermidis have also been isolated. The exact role of aerobic bacteria in the pathogenesis of acne remains controversial, but several reports have shown that these microorganisms are important in the development of acne lesions and affect acne severity by their involvement in the inflammatory process.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical features associated with aerobic microorganisms isolated from inflammatory acne and to identify antibiotic resistance.
METHODS
We examined the species of bacteria aerobically and anaerobically isolated from patients with inflammatory acne and determined the relationship between antimicrobial resistance of the isolated aerobic organisms and clinical characteristics in 186 patients.
RESULTS
P. acnes was cultured in 40.86% of the patients. Enterobacter aerogenes (4.30%), S. capitis species (6.45%), S. aureus (3.76%), S. hominis (2.15%), Serraita marcescens (1.08%), Klebsiella oxitoca (1.08%), S. lugdunensis (1.08%), S. auricularis (0.54%), S. hyicus (0.54%), S. simulans (0.54%), and S. saprophyticus (0.54%) were also cultured. Among the aerobes isolated from lesions, S. epidermidis was the most common (43.0%) and showed higher resistance to gentamicin (57.5%), ampicilin (45.0%), erythromycin (40.0%), and clindamycin (30.0%) than previous reports. The disease duration in the S. epidermidis group resistant to gentamicin, erythromycin, ampicilin, and clindamycin was longer than that in the susceptible group.
CONCLUSION
These results revealed the recent increase in antibiotic resistance of S. epidermidis in patients with acne. Antibiotic resistance of aerobes in patients with acne have a tendency to increase based on disease duration.