Bacteriological Profile and In-Vitro Biofilm Formation on Tracheostomy Cannulae at Four Weeks: A Cross-Sectional Study in Padang, Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37275/bsm.v10i10.1671Keywords:
Biofilms, Cross-sectional studies, Indonesia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, TracheostomyAbstract
Background: A tracheostomy tube bypasses the mucociliary escalator and is colonised rather than kept sterile, yet we identified no published study from Sumatra characterising what grows on it, and none anywhere sampling at a device age fixed by protocol.
Objective: To characterize the cannula bacteriology and to quantify in-vitro biofilm production on tracheostomy tubes at a protocol-fixed device age of four weeks in Padang, Indonesia.
Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 33 consecutive adults at a protocol-fixed device age of four weeks at Dr. M. Djamil General Hospital, Universitas Andalas, Padang, West Sumatra, between January and July 2024. The inner aspect of the distal outer cannula was swabbed, cultured on blood agar and identified by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry; biofilm production was quantified by the tissue-culture-plate assay at 570 nm in triplicate against the plate-specific negative control.
Results: Every specimen yielded growth (33/33; 100%, 95% CI 89.6–100). Gram-negative bacilli accounted for 93.9% (95% CI 80.4–98.3) of isolates and non-fermenters for 60.6% (43.7–75.3); Pseudomonas aeruginosa was commonest at 51.5% (35.2–67.5). Moderate or strong biofilm production was found in 69.7% of isolates (52.7–82.6) and any biofilm production in 75.8% (59.0–87.2), median biofilm index 3.01 (IQR 1.71–4.55); all Klebsiella pneumoniae and Proteus mirabilis isolates produced biofilm, whereas P. aeruginosa did so in 70.6%. No patient or care factor predicted biofilm production after Holm adjustment, including inner-cannula cleaning frequency (odds ratio 5.26, 95% CI 0.54–270.0; adjusted p = 0.619).
Conclusion: A predominantly non-fermenting Gram-negative flora with a high biofilm phenotype is established by week four, supporting scheduled tube exchange at that interval and adding local device-microbiology evidence where none existed. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was not performed and is the priority for the next study.
Authors
- Ade Asyari1*
- Ferryansyah1
- Jihan Mudrika Rahmi1
- Linosefa2
- Rosfita Rasyid3
- 1Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia
- 2Department of Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia
- 3Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Andalas, Padang, Indonesia
Corresponding author Ade Asyari — adeasyari@med.unand.ac.id
Article history
- Submitted
- Accepted
- Published
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Ade Asyari, Ferryansyah, Jihan Mudrika Rahmi, Linosefa, Rosfita Rasyid
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright and licensing
Copyright in each article remains with the author(s). Authors grant Bioscientia Medicina: Journal of Biomedicine and Translational Research a non-exclusive right of first publication and the right to identify itself as the original publisher. No exclusive transfer of copyright is required.
All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Users may copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes, provided appropriate attribution is given, a link to the license is supplied, changes are indicated, and adaptations are distributed under the same license.
The license applies to the article's scholarly content unless a credit line states otherwise. Third-party material may be subject to separate rights. Authors retain patent, trademark, moral, and research-data rights. The copyright year follows the article's publication date.
