JAC Advance Access originally published online on August 23, 2006
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2006 58(4):901-902; doi:10.1093/jac/dkl351
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Correspondence |
Hospital consumption of antibiotics in 15 European countries: results of the ESAC Retrospective Data Collection (1997–2002)—author response
ESAC Management Team, Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerp, Belgium
*Tel: +32-3-821-3789; Fax: +32-3-825-4281; E-mail: Herman.Goossens{at}uza.be
Keywords: antibacterial agents , data collection , hospitals , drug utilization
Sir,
I thank Kern et al.1 for their comments regarding our article2 and congratulate our German colleagues for their successful attempt to collect comprehensive data from south-western Germany. We fully acknowledge the advantages of data collected from individual hospitals within national antibiotic programmes. These data are often complemented by a denominator (number of bed days or admissions) and can be expressed in e.g. DDD per 100 bed days. As nicely demonstrated in the paper by Kern et al.,1 regional data based on individual hospitals allow stratification of antibiotic use according to the hospital type, size or location.
In our article2 we reported on hospital antibiotic consumption for the year 2002, and at that time valid national estimates were available for only 15 of the 34 countries participating in the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC) project, granted by DG SANCO of the European Commission. Indeed, for the remaining countries, the data delivered on hospital antibiotic use to ESAC were mostly based on a sample of hospitals. Since 2002 we have made a lot of progress, and data collected from individual hospitals within national antibiotic programmes have been compiled in the Netherlands, Lithuania, Austria, Ireland and (as nicely illustrated by Kern et al.1) Germany. In addition, Iceland is able to extract their hospital use data from total sales data since 2004, and Russia and Israel have been delivering their national data since 2003. Thus, sound national data are now available from 23 countries. Other countries were able to deliver data from a limited sample of hospitals or conducted ad hoc one-off studies. As a result, there are now only a few white spots left on the European map (see Figure 1). Finally, in 2006 we launched an ESAC ‘Hospital care’ subproject, led by Professor Peter Davey of the University of Dundee, Scotland, to develop an accurate methodology for comparative studies on hospital antibiotic use. Indeed, there are no studies assessing the different numerators and denominators which should be used to monitor hospital antibiotic use, rendering comparison and benchmarking of hospital antibiotic use cumbersome. In this subproject, a longitudinal and point prevalence study on hospital antibiotic use is being conducted in 23 countries participating in ESAC.
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Our final aims in the ESAC project are not only to remove all white spots from the European map, but also to develop a standardized method for producing and analysing valid data for hospital antibiotic use.
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References
1 Kern WV, Steib-Bauert M, de With K. (2006) Comment on: Hospital consumption of antibiotics in 15 European countries: results of the ESAC Retrospective Data Collection (1997–2002). J Antimicrob Chemother 58: doi:10.1093/jac/dkl344.
2
Vander Stichele RH, Elseviers MM, Ferech M, et al. (2006) Hospital consumption of antibiotics in 15 European countries: results of the ESAC Retrospective Data Collection (1997–2002). J Antimicrob Chemother 58:159–67.
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