Introduction: Bacterial resistance is a public health problem worldwide that seriously compromises the possibility to treat infections.
Objective: To identify levels of resistance to antibiotic markers in Enterobacteriaceae isolates from Colombian hospitals.
Materials and methods: A systematic literature survey was done including articles indexed in Medline, Embase and LILACS. A manual search was made of Colombian scientific journals and other publications on infectious disease that were not available electronically.
Results: In total, 43 observational studies and epidemiological reports were identified with information about resistance among Enterobacteriaceae isolates in Colombian hospitals, mainly from Bogotá, Cali and Medellín. The resistance rate of Escherichia coli ranges from 3 to 11%, 5 to 20% and from 0.2 to 0.8% for piperacillin-tazobactam, third generation cephalosporins and carbapenems, respectively. For Klebsiella pneumoniae resistance rates ranges from 21.8 to 48.1% to piperacillin-tazobactam, 20 to 35% to broad-spectrum cephalosporins and 3 to 8% to carbapenems, with significant variations by cities, levels of care and clinical settings.
Conclusions: The spread of bacterial resistance in Enterobacteriaceae isolated in Colombian hospitals is a growing problem that calls for priority action to cut the chains of transmission.