Bacteraemia and antibiotic resistance of its pathogens reported in England and Wales between 1990 and 1998: trend analysis.

OBJECTIVES

Determination of causes, trends, and antibiotic resistance in reports of bacterial pathogens isolated from blood in England and Wales from 1990 to 1998.

DESIGN

Description of bacterial isolates from blood, judged to be clinically significant by microbiology staff, reported to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre.

SETTING

Microbiology laboratories in England and Wales.

SUBJECTS: Patients yielding clinically significant isolates from blood.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency and Poisson regression analyses for trend of reported causes of bacteraemia and proportions of antibiotic resistant isolates.

RESULTS

There was an upward trend in total numbers of reports of bacteraemia. The five most cited organisms accounted for over 60% of reports each year. There was a substantial increase in the proportion of reports of Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin, Streptococcus pneumoniae resistance to penicillin and erythromycin, and Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium resistance to vancomycin. No increase was seen in resistance of Escherichia coli to gentamicin.

CONCLUSIONS

Reports from laboratories provide valuable information on trends and antibiotic resistance in bacteraemia and show a worrying increase in resistance to important antibiotics.