Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the Oropharyngeal Ecosystem of Tube-Fed Patients

We evaluated whether elderly patients fed with nasogastric tubes (NGT) are predisposed to Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonization in the oropharynx. Fifty-three patients on NGT feeding and 50 orally fed controls with similar clinical characteristics were studied. The tongue dorsum was swabbed and cultured. P. aeruginosa was isolated in 18 (34%) of the NGT-fed group but in no controls (p<0.001). Other gram-negative bacteria were cultured from 34 (64%) of NGT-fed patients as compared with 4 (8%) of controls (p<0.001). Antibiotic susceptibility of the oropharyngeal P. aeruginosa isolates was compared with that of isolates from sputum cultures obtained from our hospital’s bacteriologic laboratory. The oropharyngeal isolates showed a higher rate of resistance; differences were significant for amikacin (p<0.03). Scanning electron microscope studies showed a biofilm containing P. aeruginosa organisms. The pulsed-field gel electrophoresis profile of these organisms was similar to that of P. aeruginosa isolates from the oropharynx. NGT-fed patients may serve as vectors of resistant P. aeruginosa strains.