Background. Antibiotic treatment in emergency general surgery (EGS) is a major challenge for surgeons, and a multidisciplinary approach is necessary in order to improve outcomes. Intra-abdominal infections are at high risk of increased morbidity and...
Overuse and misuse of antibiotics have led to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pose a significant threat due to adverse drug reactions, increased healthcare costs, and poor patient outcomes. Antibiotic stewardship programs, includin...
(1) Background: Antibiotics are received by a majority of adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Guidelines recommend antibiotic de-escalation (ADE) when culture results are available; however, there is less guidance for patients with negative cul...
Background: Antimicrobial de-escalation (ADE) is a part of antimicrobial stewardship strategies aiming to minimize unnecessary or inappropriate antibiotic exposure to decrease the rate of antimicrobial resistance. Information regarding the effectiven...
Objective: This study aimed to assess the effect of antibiotic de-escalation on 30-day mortality, duration of intravenous (IV) antibiotic therapy and length of hospital stay (LOS) in severe community-acquired pneumonia (sCAP). Methods: We performed a...
Antibiotic de-escalation (ADE) is important to help optimize antibiotic use and balance the positive and negative effects of antimicrobial therapy. ADE should be performed promptly, and infections should be treated with the shortest course of antimic...
Background: Antimicrobial resistance is a global health threat and Fiji is not exempt. The appropriate prescribing and timely de-escalation of antibiotics as an integral component of antimicrobial stewardship has been recently introduced in Fiji to h...
Background: More data are needed about the safety of antibiotic de-escalation in specific clinical situations as a strategy to reduce exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics. This study aims to compare the survival curve of patient de-escalated (early...
Background/Objectives: Despite overlapping inflammatory responses and frequent culture-negative results in severe burn patients, early and accurate sepsis diagnosis remains challenging. We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of seven candida...
We present a case of severe adenoviral pneumonia in a 20-year-old immunocompetent host with persistently high fevers. The patient was needlessly given multiple empiric antibiotics for non-existent bacterial co-infection. This case has important antib...
Objective: Serial procalcitonin (PCT) monitoring has been adopted to supplement clinical judgement and help guide antibiotic therapy as part of antimicrobial stewardship programs. PCT levels peak 24 to 48 h after infection onset and decline with infe...
The demographics and outcomes of ICU patients admitted for a COVID-19 infection have been characterized in extensive reports, but little is known about antimicrobial stewardship for these patients. We designed this retrospective, observational study...
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) recommend pneumococcal urinary antigen testing (UAT) for a subset of inpatients admitted with pneumonia. Despite this, UAT testing is frequently perfo...
Introduction: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections are associated with poor outcomes, particularly among hematology-oncology patients. Appropriate use (selection and de-escalation) of antibiotics is a key component of management o...
Aim: Antibiotic de-escalation (ADE) is essential, but appears to be underperformed although being possible, which we refer to as a ‘missed opportunity’. We aimed to analyze the ADE missed opportunities in Gram-negative bloodstream infecti...
Bloodstream infections (BSIs) in critically ill patients are associated with significant mortality. For patients with septic shock, antibiotics should be administered within the hour. Probabilistic treatment should be targeted to the most likely path...
Antibiotic misuse in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) can lead to increased antimicrobial resistance, antibiotic-triggered side effects, hospital costs, and mortality. We performed a multicenter, prospective study, analyzing critically ill pedi...
The increasing global threat of antibiotic resistance, which has resulted in countless fatalities due to untreatable infections, underscores the urgent need for a strategic action plan. The acknowledgment that humanity is perilously approaching the &...
(1) Background: Piperacillin/tazobactam is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial encompassing most Gram-positive and Gram-negative aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. The inappropriate use of such broad-spectrum antibiotics is an important contributor to the ri...
Antibiotics account for over 10% of the overall drug expense of the National Health System in Italy in 2021. Their use in children is of particular interest on one side, because acute infections are very common in children, while they build their imm...
Our antimicrobial pharmacist-led intervention included: (a) a structured review of antibiotic prescriptions; (b) educating prescribers on antimicrobial therapy; (c) monthly reporting of department-level rates of blood sampling for culture. Daily revi...
In small animal practice, blood cultures (BCs) are essential for diagnosing bacterial bloodstream infections (BSIs) and guiding targeted antimicrobial therapy, particularly in relation to the rise of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens. This study an...
The antibiotic spectrum is not reflected in conventional antimicrobial metrics. Days of antibiotic spectrum coverage (DASC) is a novel quantitative metric for antimicrobial consumption developed with consideration of the antibiotic spectrum. However,...
Molecular methods allow for a rapid identification of the main causative agents of pneumonia along with the most frequent resistance genes. Prolonged broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy without microbiological evidence of infection drives antimicrobial...
Background/Objectives: Children and adolescents with haematologic malignancies or other causes of immunosuppression are at high risk of severe infections. Determining the probability of Gram-negative bacilli bloodstream infections (GNB-BSI) within 24...
Antimicrobial de-escalation (ADE) is defined as the discontinuation of one or more antimicrobials in empirical therapy, or the replacement of a broad-spectrum antimicrobial with a narrower-spectrum antimicrobial. The aim of this review is to provide...
Ceftazidime–avibactam (CZA) is a potent broad-spectrum drug combination covering extended-spectrum β-lactamases, AmpC, and carbapenemases of class A and D, OXA-48-type producers. Rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing is crucial for th...
Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP) promote appropriate antimicrobial use. We present a 4-year retrospective study that evaluated the clinical impact of the acceptance of the recommendations made by a meropenem-focused ASP. A total of 318 merope...
Introduction: Febrile neutropenia (FN) is a potentially severe entity, particularly in hemato-oncologic patients who have higher incidence of colonization with multidrug-resistant bacteria. Discrepancies among guidelines contribute to divergence in a...
Broad-spectrum antibiotics administered to patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia pose a risk of infection caused by Clostridioides difficile. This risk is reduced mainly by strict hygiene measures and early de-escalation of antibiotic therapy. Rece...
Studies in adults support the use of a negative methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) nares screening (MNS) to help limit empiric anti-MRSA antibiotic therapy. We aimed to evaluate the use of MNS for anti-MRSA antibiotic de-escalation in...
Antibiotics misuse and overuse are concerning issues worldwide, especially in low middle-income countries. These practices contribute to the increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance. One efficient strategy to avoid them is antimicrobial stewardsh...
Introduction: Lower respiratory tract infections are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children worldwide. It is crucial to promptly conduct diagnostic investigations in order to determine the microbiological cause of pneumonia, since t...
Multidrug-resistant (MDR)/extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Pseudomonas aeruginosa is emerging as a major threat related to adverse patient outcomes. The goal of this review is to describe evidence-based empiric and targeted treatment regimens that ca...
“Antimicrobial stewardship” is a strategy that promotes the responsible use of antimicrobials. The objective of this paper is to focus on consolidated and more recent improvements in clinical strategies that should be adopted in hospitali...
Background/Objectives: Length of hospital stay (LOS) is a critical measure of healthcare efficiency. This study investigated factors contributing to prolonged LOS in adult patients with urinary tract infections (UTIs) in Lebanon and assessed microbia...
Evidence for the utility of pharmacist-driven antimicrobial stewardship programs remains limited. This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of our institutional pharmacist-driven prospective audit with intervention and feedback (PAF) on the treatme...
Overconsumption of antibiotics in hospitals has led to policy implementation, including the control of antibiotic prescriptions. The impact of these policies on the evolution of antimicrobial resistance remains uncertain. In this work, we review the...
The emergence of antibiotic resistance poses a global health threat. High-risk patients such as those with neutropenia are particularly vulnerable to opportunistic infections, sepsis, and multidrug-resistant infections, and clinical outcomes remain t...
Background: Antibiotic stewardship (AS) ward rounds are a core element in clinical care for surgical patients. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the impact of surgical AS ward rounds on antibiotic prescribing, and the sustainability of the effect after...
Multiple modes of interventions are available when implementing an antibiotic stewardship program (ASP), however, their complementarity has not yet been assessed. In a 938-bed hospital, we sequentially implemented four combined modes of interventions...
Background: Antiviral treatment is a hot topic regarding therapy for COVID-19. Several antiviral drugs have been tested in the months since the pandemic began. Yet only Remdesivir obtained approval after first trials. The best time to administer Remd...
Pulmonary multiplex polymerase chain reaction (m-PCR) allows rapid pathogen detection. We aimed to assess its impact on initial antibiotic prescriptions in ventilated patients with suspected pneumonia. Between November 2020 and March 2022,ventilated...
The appropriate use of carbapenem is a critical concern for patient safety and public health, and is a national priority. We investigated the nationwide status of carbapenem prescription in patients within their last 14 days of life to guide judiciou...
Background: Sepsis caused by multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli lead physicians to prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, such as carbapenems. Rapid susceptibility testing can help with the rational use of antibiotics. The aim of this s...
Timely administration of appropriate antibiotic therapy is associated with better patient outcomes and lower costs of care compared to delayed appropriate therapy, yet initial treatment is often empiric since causal pathogens are typically unknown up...
To minimize complications associated with over-utilization of antibiotics, many antimicrobial stewardship programs have incorporated an antibiotic time out (ATO); however, limited data are available to support its effectiveness. This was a single-cen...
The antibiotic stewardship programme (ASP) is a new concept initiated by WHO, but nurses are not yet ready to adopt the program. The training and empowerment of nurses are the best strategies for enhancing their knowledge and engagement in ASP. This...
The fear of missing sepsis episodes in neonates frequently leads to indiscriminate use of antibiotics, and prescription program optimization is suggested for reducing this inappropriate usage. While different authors have studied how to reduce antibi...
In our hospital, a full-time pharmacist specializing in antimicrobial therapy joined the newly launched antimicrobial stewardship team in May 2018, and started daily monitoring to optimize the use of broad-spectrum antimicrobials. For the medical sta...
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