| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bronchofiberscopy, a widely used procedure for the diagnosis of various pulmonary diseases within intensive care units, has a history of association with nosocomial infections. Between September and November 2009, an outbreak caused by multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii</it> (MDR-Ab) was observed in the intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital in Beijing, China. This study is aimed to describe the course and control of this outbreak and investigate the related risk factors.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Clinical and environmental sampling, genotyping with repetitive extragenic palindromic polymerase chain reaction (REP-PCR), and case–control risk factor analysis were performed in the current study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the epidemic period, 12 patients were infected or colonized with MDR-Ab. Sixteen (72.7%) of twenty-two MDR-Ab isolates from the 12 patients and 22 (84.6%) of 26 MDR-Ab isolates from the bronchofiberscope and the healthcare-associated environment were clustered significantly into a major clone (outbreak MDR-Ab strain) by REP-PCR typing. Seven patients carrying the outbreak MDR-Ab strain were defined as the cases. Six of the seven cases (83%) received bronchofiberscopy versus four of the 19 controls (21%) (odds ratio, 22.5; 95% confidence interval, 2.07–244.84; P = 0.005). Several potential administrative and technical problems existed in bronchofiberscope reprocessing.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Bronchofiberscopy was associated with this MDR-Ab outbreak. Infection control precautions including appropriate bronchofiberscope reprocessing and environmental decontamination should be strengthened.</p>
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