Antibiotic Resistance: Why the Numbers Matter

Vikas Gupta, PharmD, BCPS, director of Clinical Strategy at Becton Dickinson, discusses the clinical significance of his studies regarding the national prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“[The clinical significance of these studies is] threefold. One is that, at a health system level it’s very important to know what your regional rates are, not just in your state, but on a narrower [level], maybe [at] your county-level, or local regional level. The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] is promoting more integrated mechanisms where different health systems can start to work together to really combat antibiotic resistance. This type of data really provides information on areas that should be of greater focus. From a health system level, that’s important [that it’s] regional.

[The second significance is for] pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies. [With] better understanding how many potential episodes are there, they can then be better apt to design drugs or diagnostics to combat these. For example, we’re seeing more multidrug-resistant organisms in the nonacute-care setting. We’re seeing more antibiotic studies being done in the acute care setting but maybe there’s an opportunity for oral antibiotics, as an example. But this is an area where diagnostics, as well as pharmaceutical companies, can further investigate.

Third, local and state public health agencies, can really look to see what the type of resistance patterns [are] that are occurring more in [the] concurrent time period. They can then allocate their resources appropriately, inform the clinicians within their regions that we’re seeing more of this in this type of setting, and work together to really try to combat these types of resistances and really try to prevent their spread.”