JAC Advance Access originally published online on September 24, 2009
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2009 64(6):1291-1298; doi:10.1093/jac/dkp349
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Original research |
Prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria isolated from older versus younger hospitalized adults: results of a two-centre study
1 Section of Infectious Diseases, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 2 Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA 3 VA Maryland Health Care System, Baltimore, MD, USA 4 Section of General Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 5 Department of Pharmacy Practice, Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, Portland, OR, USA 6 Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, Indiana University Center for Aging Research, Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Received 29 January 2009; returned 5 May 2009; revised 2 July 2009; accepted 1 September 2009
* Corresponding author. Tel: +1-773-702-6776; Fax: +1-773-702-8998; E-mail: sgweber{at}medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
Objectives: To compare the proportion of antimicrobial-resistant strains among bacterial isolates from younger and older hospital patients and to quantify changes in the proportion of antimicrobial-resistant strains in both groups over time.
Patients and methods: A retrospective analysis of microbiology data from two centres in Maryland and Chicago was performed. Adult hospital inpatients with positive clinical cultures for specific antimicrobial-resistant bacterial pathogens between 1999 and 2005 (55 427 isolates) were included. The proportions of isolates not susceptible to specific antimicrobial agents were compared between patients 
65 and <65 years. Additional analyses examined temporal trends in the frequency of resistance and the frequency of resistance among the oldest patients (80 years), in bacteria isolated from blood cultures and in bacteria obtained from intensive care unit patients.
Results: Heterogeneity was observed in the frequency of resistance among different bacteria between older and younger patients, between the two centres and over the study period. Staphylococcus aureus isolates were more likely to be resistant to methicillin when obtained from older patients at Chicago (50.9% versus 40.9%; P < 0.001). In contrast, younger patients yielded a greater proportion of enterococci resistant to vancomycin at Maryland (19.4% versus 16.5%; P = 0.009). Results were variable when resistance to fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins and imipenem were compared for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp.
Conclusions: Overall, advanced patient age was not uniformly associated with a greater likelihood of antimicrobial resistance among all bacterial pathogens. Moreover, the frequency of resistance in older and younger patients varied considerably at the two sites over the study period. Variability in the frequency of resistance precludes simplistic conclusions regarding the relationship between age and resistance.
Keywords: drug resistance , bacterial , age