Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations before and after Antibacterial Treatment in Patients with Mycobacterium abscessus Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

The MICs of isolates from 86 patients with Mycobacterium abscessus (MABS); 46 with Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. abscessus (Mab), and 40 with Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. massiliense (Mma) were retrospectively analyzed. The main findings are as follows: i) Mma were significantly more susceptible to clarithromycin and azithromycin than Mab, and both subspecies tended to be more susceptible to clarithromycin than azithromycin. ii) Most isolates were susceptible to amikacin (93.0%), and over half to linezolid (55.8%). iii) Fifty-one isolates (59.3%) had MIC values of less than 1 μg/mL for sitafloxacin, and 65 (75.6%) had less than 0.5 μg/mL for clofazimine, which seems worth clinical investigating. iv) Among nine cases analyzed chronological changes, only two patients showed obvious MIC result changes even after the long-term multidrug treatment.