Fewer deaths by preventive antibiotic use

Netherlands, January 2: A study in Netherlands has found that prophylactic treatment with antibiotics reduced a patient’s relative rate of infection by 30-54 percent.

This has emerged from an examination of nearly 6,000 Dutch patients in 13 hospitals who were in the ICU for at least one month.

During the course of the study, Dr Anne Marie de Smet, an anesthesiologist-intensivist at the University Medical Center Utrecht, and her team compared the effects of two kinds of antibioticdefine treatment with standard ICU care.

The participating patients were assigned to three groups. The first group received oral antibiotic paste four times a day. The second group was given antibiotics through gastricdefine tube in the intestinal tract and by intravenous drip. This was in addition to the oral antibiotic paste four times a day. The third group was the control group and received standard ICU care.

All the patients were expected to be on the ventilator for two days or be admitted to the ICU for a minimum period of at least three days.

After four weeks of observation, the researchers discovered that antibiotic therapy saved one life for every 29-34 patients. Beside an increase in the survival rate, those administered antibiotics also benefited from reduced ICU and hospital stays.

The difference between the two groups treated with antibiotics was not significant. Nonetheless, the positive angle was that the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria did not increase in the patients.

The findings reveal that the precautionary usage of antibiotics prior to development of infection can increase the survival rate.

Dr Smet stated that "I believe we should revise the antibiotic policy for the ICU.

Dr Smet said that because the study was conducted in 13 Dutch hospitals, the conclusions can be implemented throughout the country. “We have seen that using antibiotics clearly results in a reduction in the number of deaths, and ICUs should make use of this knowledge."

However the researchers felt the study was too short to provide an insight into how resistance develops in the long run. There was need for further research.

The findings appear in The New England Journal of Medicine.