Tracing the dissemination of the international clones of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii among cancer patients in Egypt using the PCR-based open reading frame typing (POT) method

•Infections by multidrug-resistant (MDR) A. baumannii are a major problem among Egyptian cancer patients.•The POT method allows tracing the dissemination of MDR A. baumannii in healthcare settings.•A. baumannii IC2 (POT 122) persisted for 3years in the studied cancer centre.•The POT method is useful for centres with limited resources. The aim of this study was to perform an epidemiological surveillance of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii genetic lineages among cancer patients in Egypt using the PCR-based open reading frame typing (POT) method. A total of 160 MDR A. baumannii isolates were collected between January 2015 and December 2017 at a tertiary-care centre in Egypt. VITEK®2 system was used for preliminary species identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. The POT method was applied for confirmation of species identification and molecular epidemiological typing of the isolates. MDR A. baumannii isolates were classified into 15 POT types, including POT 122 (n=69), POT 69 (n=22) and other miscellaneous POT types (MPOTs) including POT 0, 8, 10, 12, 14, 40, 44, 52, 56, 93, 104, 106 and 108 (n=69). POT 122 isolates infected or colonised 61% of patients hospitalised in surgical wards and 54% of patients diagnosed with solid tumours and 51% were adults; whereas MPOT isolates infected or colonised 51% of patients hospitalised in paediatric wards and 49% of patients diagnosed with haematological malignancies and 51% were paediatric patients (P=0.007, 0.001 and 0.004, respectively). MPOT isolates were recovered from 46% of the collected blood specimens, whilst POT 122 isolates were recovered from 61% of the collected respiratory specimens (P=0.05). The current study demonstrates that the easy, low-cost POT method is convenient for rapid delineation of A. baumannii clonal diversity in a tertiary-care hospital in Egypt.