Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD
Author – Ramanan Laxminarayan, Ph.D.,
director of Extending the Cure (ETC)
Patients in the United States are among the most intensive users of antibiotics in the world, but you may be surprised to learn that overall per capita outpatient antibiotic prescribing in the United States has decreased in recent years. In fact, between 1999 and 2007, the number of dispensed antibiotic prescriptions per thousand inhabitants dropped from 975 to 858 – a 12% decline.
Extending the Cure’s ResistanceMap shows new visualizations documenting this downward trend in prescribing. But enthusiasm should be tempered by some troubling patterns of antibiotic use.
For example, while penicillins still account for one out of every three antibiotic prescriptions filled, the use of more powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics is increasingly rapidly. Dispensing of one powerful class of antibiotics, fluoroquinolones, increased by 49% over the time period.
To a certain extent, the increase is warranted by the emergence of drug resistance to other antibiotic therapies. However, doctors often indiscriminately turn to fluoroquinolone antibiotics because they are broad-spectrum and therefore effective against a range of bacterial infections.
But it is precisely because quinolones are powerful and widely effective that we should be using them prudently. Their effectiveness is much like a shared resource that we all benefit from. Already, resistance to fluoroquinolones among E. coli samples in the United States has risen from just 3.3% in 1999 to 21.74% in 2010.
The situation with fluoroquinolones demonstrates the perils of antibiotic resistance. As dangerous resistant organisms like carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) and multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii continue to spread globally, we need to ensure that we don’t lose our effective antibiotics to resistance.
The first step is to stop using antibiotics when they are not indicated, such as for treatment of viral illnesses including cold and flu. But ResistanceMap also shows how stewardship messages will need to be tailored to different classes of antibiotics, as well as to geographical regions. The maps highlight vast regional variations in use – in some areas of the Southeast, antibiotic dispensing levels are twice those in the Pacific states. Experience from Europe has shown how targeting these high-consumption regions with information campaigns can aid conservation efforts.
Research remains to be done to determine how and why variations in prescribing patterns emerge. “Get Smart Week” is an important reminder to think twice before using antibiotics and preserve these life-saving therapies for future generations.
Some information was missing or invalid. Please see below for details.
Public Comments
Comments listed below are posted by individuals not associated with CDC, unless otherwise stated. These comments do not represent the official views of CDC, and CDC does not guarantee that any information posted by individuals on this blog is correct, and disclaims any liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance on any such information. Read more about our comment policy ».
August 18, 2012 at 9:03 am ET - www.skiingclothescool.net
Hey there! Someone in my Facebook group shared this site with us so I came to check it out. I’m definitely enjoying the information. I’m bookmarking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Fantastic blog and outstanding design.
Link to this comment
February 2, 2012 at 8:33 pm ET - Sharon
Obviously, antibiotic resistance is an ever-growing problem. However, the difficulty in obtaining antibiotics under necessary circumstances; e.g., bacterial sinus infections, bacterial pneumonia; and for an appropriate length of duration, so as to completely resolve infections, also must be taken into consideration in the clinical desicision-making process. Otherwise, infectious bacterial infections may be only partially resolved, thereby potentially strengthening the organisms of concern; and thusly defeating efforts to curtail antibiotic resistance.
In addition, requiring patients to wait 10 or more days, before accepting that an infection is indeed bacterial, frequently results in unnecesary lost work, sick and vacation days.
Finally, through recent studies, it is becoming more and more clear that much of the antibiotic resistance that is occurring is a result of the meat and poultry industry practices of using equivalent antibiotics to those used for prophylactic infection prevention in livestock are the very same as those used to treat human infections.
Rather than taking such a heavy-handed approach by refusing to prescribe antibiotics to when necessary, I strongly recommend that government agencies and the AMA lobby to immediately stop the use of the same antibiotics for preventive purposes in livestock as those used for infection-treatment purposes in humans. In adddition, government agencies and physicians should work with drug manufacturers to formulate new antibiotics which are incapable of inducing antibiotic resistance.
Link to this comment
November 29, 2011 at 5:47 pm ET - Jennie Choe
The overuse of powerful broad-spectrum antibiotics is often a fallback for diagnostic uncertainty. As Dr. Laxminarayan points out, a physician will often prescribe the most broad-spectrum antibiotic available when it is unclear what type of bacterial infection the patient is suffering from. Knowing that the drug will be effective against a range of different pathogens, the hope is that the one infecting the patient will fall within that range.
This misguided “better safe than sorry” approach to antibiotic prescription highlights the need for development and utilization of better diagnostic methods and technologies that are ASSURED – Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User-friendly, Rapid/Robust, Equipment-free, and Deliverable (from “Divining Without Seeds” by Dr. Iruka Okeke). As these technologies advance and health systems provide incentives to use them, physicians can then utilize powerful narrow-spectrum antibiotics to match the actual need rather than squandering critical (and rapidly diminishing) medicinal resources such as ampicillin and the fluoroquinolones.
More insights into recent diagnostic innovations from experts in the field can be found in the APUA Clinical Newsletter Vol.29 No.2 (Diagnostic Innovation to Contain Resistance) at http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/news/newsletter_2011-2_29_2470552761.pdf.
Link to this comment
November 23, 2011 at 4:04 am ET - Donna Strigle
I have warned people about this. Very thing. We seem to give antibiotics for everything from a cold to a non strep sore throat! I think it will take a lot or re- educating the public and yes even some of us who give in to the constant patient who just knows they NEED an antibiotic!
Link to this comment
November 20, 2011 at 5:43 pm ET - Michael E. Bailey
It is not a good use of antibiotics to use them to treat the flu or common cold. What is needed to reduce antibiotic overuse is a new flu vaccine that would be multi-year and cover all strains. This is a major step to limiting antibiotics use and also to unnecessary hospitalizations and doctors’ office visits.
Link to this comment