Abstract

Potentially life-threatening infections require immediate antibiotic therapy. Most early stage antibiotic treatment for these infections is empiric that is covering a range of possible target bacteria while awaiting culture results. Empiric antibiotic regimens need to reflect the epidemiology of most likely causative bacteria, type of infection and patient risk factors. Summary data from relevant isolates in similar patients helps to identify appropriate empiric regimens. At present, such data are mostly presented as hospital or other aggregate antibiograms, showing antimicrobial susceptibility testing results by bacterial species. However, a more suitable method is to calculate weighted incidence syndromic antibiograms (WISCAs) for different types of infections and regimens, allowing head-to-head comparisons of empiric regimens. Once there is confirmatory or negative microbiological evidence of infection, empiric regimens should be adapted to the identified bacterial species and susceptibilities or discontinued.