Evaluation of the Approaches Adopted by the Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology Specialists and Medical Microbiology Specialists in the Case of Myroides spp. Growth in Urine Culture: A Survey Study

Myroides species are bacteria that, although rare, can cause a variety of serious infections, including urinary tract infections, and are often resistant to antibiotics. There are no studies on the knowledge and attitudes of specialists regarding Myroides spp. growth in culture in literature. In our study, the survey forms created with Google Forms (Google LLC, CA, USA) were shared in the e-mail groups of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (IDCM) and Medical Microbiology (MM) specialties via electronic communication system. The results were evaluated statistically. 92 IDCM specialists and 75 MM specialists participated in the study. It was found that 48.9% of IDCM specialists and 20% of MM specialists have never seen Myroides spp. growth in a urine sample, and 32.6% of IDCM specialists and 14.9% of MM specialists still use the old name Flavobacterium for Myroides spp. (28.8% of MM specialists do not know that the name Flavobacterium is changed), and 45% of MM specialists who had previously seen Myroides spp. growth were able to recognize the Myroides spp. colony visually, and 53.3% of MM specialists who had previously seen Myroides spp. growth routinely performed antibiograms in case of Myroides spp. growth in urine culture, and 32.6% of IDCM specialists requested typing and sensitivity testing in case of Myroides spp. growth in urine culture, and 31.9% of IDCM specialists who had previously seen Myroides spp. growth considered Myroides spp. growth as a causative agent of infection in the presence of pyuria in urine, while 36.2% always considered it as colonization/contamination, and 61.7% of IDCM specialists only changed the catheter without giving antibiotics when they considered Myroides spp. as a causative agent of infection, while 21.3% gave antibiotics according to the antibiogram result. As a conclusion; our study is the first study in the world to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of infectious disease specialists and medical microbiologists about Myroides spp. growth in urine culture. The findings of our study showed particularly that approximately half of the IDCM specialists had not seen Myroides spp. growth in urine culture and that some of the specialists may have a low level of knowledge about Myroides spp.. Additionally, among the specialists participating in the study, it was shown that attitudes and approaches in the case of Myroides spp. growth in urine were not directly related to the hospital that they worked and their years of experience in specialty. Our findings suggest that MM and IDCM specialists need an update of their knowledge on Myroides spp.