Objective To investigate the characteristics of the pathogens isolated from the specimens of tumor patients and detection rates of multidrug-resistant bacteria in a hospital in the past five years, so as to provide references for infection prevention and control.

Methods The results of pathogenic culture and in vitro susceptibility of the strains isolated from the specimens collected between January 2019 and December 2023 from tumor patients were retrospectively collected, and the trends of the data were analyzed and summarized.

Results A total of 16393 strains were isolated from 80386 specimens, producing a detection rate of 20.4%. After excluding the duplicate strains isolated from the same patients, Escherichia coli (14.5%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (13.2%), Staphylococcus aureus (9.4%), Acinetobacter baumannii complex (9.3%), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (7.7%) predominated the 7951 (81.1%) bacterial strains. Among the 1857 (18.9%) fungal strains, Candida albicans (56.5%), Candida tropicalis (9.0%), and Candida parapsilosis (8.0%) were the most common ones. The specimen sources differed among the prevalent species, and the species distribution varied among specimens from different types of tumors (P<0.05). The detection rates of carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae were 2.5% (29/1152) and 12.3% (129/1050), respectively. The detection rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was 22.0% (165/749), maintaining an upward trend in the last four years (P<0.01). The detection rates of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were 40.3% (298/739) and 8.8% (54/612), respectively.

Conclusion Gram-negative bacteria were the prevalent pathogens of tumor patients. The detection rate of multidrug-resistant bacteria was relatively high, and the detection rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus showed an upward trend.