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Objectives: The aim of our study was to register the prevalence of nosocomial urinary tract infections (NAUTIs) in urology sections in Europe and Asia., Methods: A total of 6033 hospitalised patients in 194 different urology departments were screened in two Internet-based studies. Detailed reports on 727 patients with NAUTI were provided., Results: The prevalence of NAUTI was 10% in the Pan European Prevalence (PEP) study, 14% in the Pan EuroAsian Prevalence (PEAP) study, and 11% in the combined analysis. The largest group was asymptomatic bacteriuria (29%) followed by cystitis (26%), pyelonephritis (21%), and urosepsis (12%). There were significant differences between regions and types of hospitals., Conclusions: NAUTI is a large problem for urologic patients and causes huge extra costs for hospitals.

Data from two internet-based studies on NAUTI in hospitalized urological patients are presented together: the Pan European Prevalence (PEP) study, which was a 1-day prevalence study in November 2003; and the Pan Euro-Asian Prevalence (PEAP) study, which was carried out in November 2004. Overall, 93 and 101 hospitals from the two studies, respectively, completed the hospital questionnaires and provided patient information for the present study. NAUTI was diagnosed according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria in 727 of the 6033 patients hospitalized on study days in urological departments. The most commonly reported pathogen was Escherichia coli (31%), followed by species of Pseudomonas (13%), Enterococcus (10%), Klebsiella (10%), Enterobacter (6%) and Proteus (6%). Candida spp. and Pseudomonas spp. occurred significantly more frequently as causative agents in urosepsis than in other types of infections. The resistance of E. coli, Klebsiella and Proteus spp. was below 45% for the most commonly used antibiotics. Enterococcus spp. and Pseudomonas spp. however, had resistance rates above 70% to most antibiotics. A total of 56% of the hospitalized urological patients were receiving antimicrobial therapy on the study day; 46% for prophylaxis, 26% for microbiologically proven UTI, 21% for only clinically suspected UTI and 7% for other infections. The most commonly used antibiotics were fluoroquinolones (35%), cephalosporins (27%), penicillins (16%), aminoglycosides (15%), and co-trimoxazole (9%). Differences between countries and regions were highly significant. There is an urgent need for continuous surveillance of NAUTI and improvement of antibiotic policy to counteract the widespread increase of antimicrobial resistance.

To assess the antibiotic policies in Central Eastern European (CEE) countries, a questionnaire on the prevalence of resistance, antibiotic consumption data for ambulatory and hospital care and antibiotic policies, was mailed to national representatives. Data on antibiotic resistance and consumption of antibiotics at national levels are limited and vary considerably among countries. The importance of surveillance data in altering perceptions of the prevalence of resistance is shown by the comparison of surveillance data and interview data. Interview data without surveillance data produced the widest range of estimates of the prevalence of resistance in streptococcus pneumonia -5% in Lithuania and 82% in Belarus. The average consumption of antibiotics in ambulatory care in eight CEE countries in 2001 was 19.35 defined daily doses (DDD)/1000 inhabitants per day, (range 13.1 - 24.8 DDD) and in hospitals in six CEE countries was 2.2 DDD/1000 inhabitants per day (range 1.3-4.5). Over the counter sales of antibiotics are available in some countries. Antibiotic policy interventions do not exist or only apply to specific problems or interventions. Better implementation of antibiotic interventions and education on antibiotic use should be a high priority in this region. An effective strategy requires close co-operation, consultations and partnership at national and international level in particular, via existing international organisations.

Thirty-four cefotaxime-resistant Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium isolates representative of the isolates that caused outbreaks of gastroenteritis in 10 hospitals in seven regions of Russia and Belarus from 1994 to 2003 were analyzed. All isolates produced the CTX-M-5-like extended-spectrum beta-lactamase, which confers high-level resistance to cefotaxime and ceftriaxone and decreased susceptibility to ceftazidime. The bla(CTX-M) genes were located on small (7.4- to 12-kb) non-self-transferable plasmids approximately 20 bp downstream of the ISEcp1 insertion sequences. Some isolates carried additional conjugative plasmids mediating resistance to penicillin-inhibitor combinations and various non-beta-lactam agents, including tetracycline, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, tobramycin, and co-trimoxazole. Despite the minor differences in susceptibility patterns, all isolates were considered clonally related on the basis of arbitrarily primed PCR and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis. The similarities of the restriction profiles of the CTX-M-coding plasmids further supported the clonal origin of these isolates.

Sera from 150 consecutive patients with established asthma and 150 matched controls were examined for Chlamydia pneumoniae IgG and IgA with commercially available enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) detecting immune response solely to surface proteins of elementary bodies. The assays were also modified to measure combined immune response to surface proteins and family-specific lipopolysaccharide antigen. Mycoplasma pneumoniae IgG and IgA were measured with new commercial EIAs utilising P1-enriched protein fraction as an antigen. No statistically significant differences between the patient groups in terms of prevalence or levels of antibodies to either organism were found with these methods.

The problem of antimicrobial resistance surveillance in Europe has been debated extensively in many excellent documents issued by national committees that often assume the value of national guidelines. However, a comprehensive document addressing the whole matter from a European perspective, as well as reviewing its present status and drafting future perspectives, has been lacking. The present recommendations have been produced by the ESCMID Study Group for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (ESGARS) through a consensus process involving all members of the Study Group. The recommendations focus on the detection of bacterial resistance and its reporting to clinicians, public health officers and a wider-and ever-increasing-audience. The leading concept is that the basis for resistance monitoring is microbiological diagnostics. The prerequisites for resistance monitoring are findings of adequate quality and quantity, which have been recorded properly and evaluated correctly. Different types of surveillance studies should fulfil different requirements with regard to data collection and reporting, the expected use of data, and the prerequisites for networking such activities. To generate relevant indicators, bacterial resistance data should be reported using adequate denominators and stratification. Reporting of antimicrobial resistance data is necessary for selection of empirical therapy at the local level, for assessing the scale of the resistance problem at the local, national or international levels, for monitoring changes in resistance rates, and for detecting the emergence and spread of new resistances types. Any type of surveillance study should conclude, where appropriate, with a proposal for intervention based on the data obtained.

A total of 904 consecutive nosocomial isolates of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae collected from 28 Russian hospitals were screened for production of extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs). The ESBL phenotype was detected in 78 (15.8%) E. coli and 248 (60.8%) K. pneumoniae isolates. One hundred fifteen isolates carried the genes for CTX-M-type beta-lactamases, which, as shown by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, were distributed into the two genetic groups of CTX-M-1 (93%)- and CTX-M-2 (7%)-related enzymes. Isolates producing the enzymes of the first group were found in 20 hospitals from geographically distant regions of the country and were characterized by considerable diversity of genetic types, as was demonstrated by enterobacterial repetitive consensus PCR typing. Within this group the CTX-M-3 and the CTX-M-15 beta-lactamases were identified. In contrast, the enzymes of the CTX-M-2 group (namely, CTX-M-5) were detected only in eight clonally related E. coli isolates from a single hospital. Notably, the levels of resistance to ceftazidime were remarkably variable among the CTX-M producers. This study provides further evidence of the global dissemination of CTX-M type ESBLs and emphasizes the need for their epidemiological monitoring.

In a randomized, evaluator-blind, multicenter trial, we compared cefepime (2 g three times a day) with imipenem-cilastatin (500 mg four times a day) for the treatment of nosocomial pneumonia in 281 intensive care unit patients from 13 centers in six European countries. Of 209 patients eligible for per-protocol analysis of efficacy, favorable clinical responses were achieved in 76 of 108 (70%) patients treated with cefepime and 75 of 101 (74%) patients treated with imipenem-cilastatin. The 95% confidence interval (CI) for the difference between these response rates (-16 to 8%) failed to exclude the predefined lower limit for noninferiority of -15%. In addition, therapy of pneumonia caused by an organism producing an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) failed in 4 of 13 patients in the cefepime group but in none of 10 patients in the imipenem group. However, the clinical efficacies of both treatments appeared to be similar in a secondary intent-to-treat analysis (95% CI for difference, -9 to 14%) and a multivariate analysis (95% CI for odds ratio, 0.47 to 1.75). Furthermore, the all-cause 30-day mortality rates were 28 of 108 (26%) patients in the cefepime group and 19 of 101 (19%) patients in the imipenem group (P = 0.25). Rates of documented or presumed microbiological eradication of the causative organism were similar with cefepime (61%) and imipenem-cilastatin (54%) (95% CI, -23 to 8%). Primary or secondary resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was detected in 19% of the patients treated with cefepime and 44% of the patients treated with imipenem-cilastatin (P = 0.05). Adverse events were reported in 71 of 138 (51%) and 62 of 141 (44%) patients eligible for safety analysis in the cefepime and imipenem groups, respectively (P = 0.23). Although the primary end point for this study does not exclude the possibility that cefepime was inferior to imipenem, some secondary analyses showed that the two regimens had comparable clinical and microbiological efficacies. Cefepime appeared to be less active against organisms producing an ESBL, but primary and secondary resistance to imipenem was more common for P. aeruginosa. Selection of a single agent for therapy of nosocomial pneumonia should be guided by local resistance patterns.

The patterns of antibiotic use in 1998 in Russia and some other countries in Eastern Europe (Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary) were studied. Poland, Slovakia and Hungary were "more modern" users of antibiotics, consuming new and expensive drugs. Russia and Belarus were "conservative" having a lower level of total consumption and using lesser quantities of penicillins, cephalosporins, macrolides, quinolones, carbapenems but greater amounts of aminoglycosides and chloramphenicol. It is essential for "conservative" countries to establish a national surveillance system of antibiotic consumption to monitor the development of bacterial resistance to antimicrobial agents and to monitor individual antibiotic use.

To assess the antibiotic policies of Central European countries, we performed an overview of antibiotic stewardship, prescription habits and antibiotic prescription regulatory procedures. Since most Central European countries have had centralized health care and drug policies, the situation 10 years after decentralization is surprising. Only 3 of 10 Central European countries have some regulation of prescription of antibiotics, only 4 restrict some antibiotics, only 5 have hospital and only 3 national antibiotic policies. In all but 3 countries physicians can prescribe quinolones and/or 3rd generation oral cephalosporins as first-line antibiotics. Information on local and national antibiotic policies in Central and Eastern European countries is given including prescription guidelines for antibiotic use in community and hospital.