ArticleAnnals of clinical microbiology and antimicrobials2017
Surveillance of life-long antibiotics: a review of antibiotic prescribing practices in an Australian Healthcare Network.
Article in Annals of clinical microbiology and antimicrobials, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- The American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN) Guidelines for Advanced Practice Providers in Interventional Spine and Pain Management Practice.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- The Use of Long-term Antibiotics for Suppression of Bacterial Infections.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2024Review
- OralPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Long-Term Outcomes in Patients on Life-Long Antibiotics: A Five-Year Cohort Study.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- PET/CT Imaging for Personalized Management of Infectious Diseases.Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Review
- Antimicrobial Resistance in the Context of the Sustainable Development Goals: A Brief Review.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2021Article
- Reconciling Hygiene and Cleanliness: A New Perspective from Human Microbiome.Indian journal of microbiology · 2020Review
- Infectious diseases physician attitudes to long-term antibiotic use.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2019Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe rise of antimicrobial use in the twentieth century has significantly reduced morbidity due to infection, however it has also brought with it the rise of increasing resistance. Some patients are on prolonged, if not "life-long" course of antibiotics. The reasons for this are varied, and include non-infectious indications. We aimed to study the characteristics of this potential source of antibiotic resistance, by exploring the antibiotic dispensing practices and describing the population of patients on long-term antibiotic therapy.
methodsA retrospective cross-sectional study of antibiotic dispensing records was performed at a large university hospital-based healthcare network in Melbourne, Australia. Outpatient prescriptions were extracted from the hospital pharmacy database over a 6 month period in 2014. Medical records of these patients were reviewed to determine the indication for prescription, including microbiology, the intended duration, and the prescribing unit. A descriptive analysis was performed on this data.
results66,127 dispensing episodes were reviewed. 202 patients were found to have been prescribed 1 or more antibiotics with an intended duration of 1 year or longer. 69/202 (34%) of these patients were prescribed prolonged antibiotics for primary prophylaxis in the setting of immunosuppression. 43/202 (21%) patients were prescribed long-term suppressive antibiotics for infections of thought incurable (e.g. vascular graft infections), and 34/43 (79%) were prescribed by Infectious Diseases doctors. 66/202 (33%) patients with cystic fibrosis were prescribed prolonged courses of macrolides or fluoroquinolones, by respiratory physicians. There was great heterogeneity noted in indications for prolonged antibiotic courses, as well as antibiotic agents utilised.
conclusionOur study found that that continuous antibiotic therapy represented only a small proportion of overall antibiotic prescribing at our health network. Prolonged courses of antibiotics were used mainly to suppress infections thought incurable, but also as primary and secondary prophylaxis and as anti-inflammatory agents. More research is needed to understand the impact of long-term antibiotic consumption on both patients and microbial ecology.
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