ArticleJAC-antimicrobial resistance2025
The association between antibiotic use in hospitals and residual antibiotic concentrations in hospital effluents: a pilot study.
Article in JAC-antimicrobial resistance, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- An Integrated Review of Pesticides and Antibiotics in Agricultural Environments: Occurrence, Cross-Media Transport, and Plant Uptake.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Education and regular Feedback for Antimicrobial Stewardship in nursing homes: EduFAST study protocol.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To analyse the possible association between hospital antibiotic use and residual antibiotic concentrations in wastewater effluents, with the aim of evaluating wastewater surveillance as a potential alternative antimicrobial use monitoring system (AlAUMS). Methods: The study was conducted at a Regional Hospital in South Africa and followed an observational, quantitative and correlational design. The hospital use of selected antibiotics was determined using consumption data as a proxy and calculated using the WHO Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) and DDD methodology. Selected antibiotics in the hospital effluent were analysed by solid-phase extraction (SPE) and quantified by GC-MS. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Findings: The highest mean antibiotic use in the hospital was for oral sulfamethoxazole (6.71 DDD/100 bed days), followed by parenteral cefazolin (3.15 DDD/100 bed days). The highest mean antibiotic concentration in the hospital effluent was for sulfamethoxazole (34.57 μg/L) followed by cefazolin (25.32 μg/L). A strong positive correlation was observed for sulfamethoxazole ( Conclusions: The positive correlation displayed between the use of cefazolin and sulfamethoxazole and their concentrations in wastewater indicates a potential association between antibiotic use and residual antibiotic concentrations in hospital settings suggesting that wastewater surveillance is a promising proxy for conventional antibiotic use surveillance. Further studies are necessary to validate these results before wastewater surveillance can be implemented as an AlAUMS.
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Registered trials
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