SUPPLEMENT ARTICLE

Bacterial Resistance: Origins, Epidemiology, and Impact

David M. Livermore
Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring and Reference Laboratory, Central Public Health Laboratory, London, United Kingdom

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The basic mechanisms of antibacterial resistance are well known, but critical new aspects continue to be discovered. Recently discovered factors with major implications for the emergence, dissemination, and maintenance of resistance include multidrug efux, hypermutability, integrons, and plasmid addiction. Some resistances are widespread and others local, with prevalence rates often worst in newly prosperous countries and in those specialist units where antibacterial use is heaviest. Multidrug-resistant epidemic strains are critical to the total accumulation of resistance (e.g., among Streptococcus pneumoniae, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae), but it remains unclear why some bacterial lineages achieve epidemic spread whereas others that are equally resistant do not. The correlation between in vitro resistance and treatment failure is imperfect, but resistance undoubtedly increases mortality, morbidity, and costs in many settings. Recent concern has led to a plethora of governmental and agency reports advocating less antibacterial use, better antibacterial use, better infection control, and the development of new antibacterials. The evidence that better prescribing can reduce resistance rates is mixed, and although changes to hospital regimens may reduce one resistance problem, other opportunistic bacteria may ll the vacant niche. Overall, the best that can reasonably be anticipated is an improved balance between the accumulation of resistance and new antibacterial development. Most bacteria have multiple routes to resistance to any drug and, once resistant, can rapidly give rise to vast numbers of resistant progeny. Natural selection favors mechanisms that confer resistance with the least tness cost and those strains that are least burdened by their resistance. Selection may also favor determinants that prevent their own counterselection and resistant strains with enhanced survival ability or virulence. To this genetic and biochemical potential must be added the wide variety of bacteria that cause opportunistic infections in vulnerable human patients and the fact that the numbers of vulnerable patients grow steadily with advances in other elds of medicine. In short, the emergence of resistance is profoundly unsurprising; what is remarkable is how long it has taken for the problem to become a source of public, as well as scientic, concern. Resistance can result from modication of an antibacterials target or from functional bypassing of that target, or it can be contingent on impermeability, efux, or enzymatic inactivation. All members of a species may be resistant. Alternatively, resistance may arise in hitherto susceptible organisms via mutation or DNA transfer. The aim of this article is not to catalog individual mechanisms or their prevalencethat has been done elsewherebut to emphasize the continuing dynamism of resistance, its impact on therapy, and the difcultybut also the potentialfor combating the problem.

SELECTION OF SPECIES WITH INHERENT RESISTANCE

Reprints or correspondence: Dr. David M. Livermore, Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring and Reference Laboratory, Central Public Health Laboratory, 61 Colindale Ave., London NW9 5HT, United Kingdom (DLivermore@phls.nhs.uk). Clinical Infectious Diseases 2003; 36(Suppl 1):S1123 2003 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. 1058-4838/2003/3602S1-0004$15.00

Antibacterial use disrupts the microbial ecology of the patient, unit, or population. Entire species may be selected. The increasing role of enterococci as opportunist pathogens in the past 20 years partly reects increasing
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use of uoroquinolones and cephalosporins, to which these organisms are inherently resistant [1, 2]. The increasing role of coagulase-negative staphylococci (especially) and a-hemolytic streptococci in hematology patients also may reect antimicrobial use: a-hemolytic streptococci are resistant to uoroquinolones, which are often used as prophylaxis in these patients, and coagulase-negative staphylococci frequently have acquired multidrug resistance [3]. A greater factor behind the rise of coagulase-negative staphylococci is, however, the increased use of indwelling lines, which provide entry portals for the skin microora. Among gram-negative pathogens, Acinetobacter baumannii and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia are increasingly prevalent in many intensive care units (ICUs), with A. baumannii notoriously associated with ventilator-associated pneumonias [4]. A. baumannii commonly has acquired resistance to all antibacterials except carbapenems, minocycline, sulbactam, and colistin, whereas S. maltophilia is often resistant to all antibacterials except co-trimoxazole (and perhaps ticarcillin-clavulanate). Some publications associate an increasing incidence of S. maltophilia infections with carbapenem use [5], but others nd a less specic relationship to the use of multiple antibacterials, including those (e.g., erythromycin) with predominantly antigram-positive spectra [6, 7].

RESISTANCE VIA MUTATION As DNA is replicated, uncorrected base substitutions occur randomly, at a frequency of 10 9 to 10 10 per gene [8]. In addition, copying errors may lead to the partial or complete deletion of individual genes [8]. As a result, the targets of antibacterials may be altered, drug-inactivation or efux systems may be up- or downregulated, and uptake pathways (porins and active transporters) may be lost or activated. Resistance genes or their repressors also can be activated or inactivated by the migration of insertion sequences. Approximately 3% of Bacteroides fragilis isolates have the carbapenemase gene ccrA (cA), but its enzyme product is expressed only if an insertion sequence has migrated upstream of this structural gene [9]. Classical experiments showed that antibacterials cause the selection of preexisting variants, not the emergence of new mutants. This observation entirely agrees with the precepts of Darwinian evolution, but a twist is given by the observations that bacteria can become hypermutable through inactivation of the proofreading and DNA mismatchrepair systems that normally correct DNA copying errors [8]. Hypermutators have up to 200-fold higher mutation rates than normal cells and so are more likely to become resistant to a rst antibacterial by mutation. Once selected by this rst drug, they are then primed to develop resistance to further agents. To this extent, antibacterials may cause the emergence of variants with an increased propensity to develop further resistance. HypermutS12 CID 2003:36 (Suppl 1) Livermore

ability also may arise transiently through induction of the SOS system, a stress response that involves the expression and function of alternative DNA polymerases with reduced copying delity [8, 10]. The SOS system is induced, inter alia, by starvation, and it is also notable that the spectrum of mutations seen in non- or slow-growing cells differs from those among logarithmic-phase organisms. Also relevant is the fact that DNA-damaging forms of reactive oxygen accumulate in nongrowing cells [8, 11], perhaps acting as mutagens. The selection or transient induction of hypermutability may explain why variants with multiple mutations have emerged more rapidly than was predicted from laboratory studies. Nonclonal strains of uoroquinolone-resistant Escherichia coli have emerged worldwide and have become highly prevalent, for example, in India [12], Spain [13], and China [14]. This is despite the fact that substantive uoroquinolone resistance in Enterobacteriaceae requires mutations to the genes for subunits of topoisomerases II and IV (gyrA and parC, respectively), together with further mutations that upregulate efux and reduce permeability, or both [1417]. Perhaps the emergence of these multiple mutants is favored by the quinolone-mediated induction of the SOS response, with its contingent hypermutability [18]. This is speculation, but there is hard evidence of the role of hypermutators in the cystic brosis lung, where Oliver et al. [19] found that 36% of 30 chronically colonized patients carried hypermutable Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Hypermutators were not found in 75 control (noncystic) patients with acute P. aeruginosa infections. Most mutations affect only a single antibacterial class, but those affecting impermeability or efux may have a pleiotropic effect. The potential for porin loss to affect multiple drug classes by restricting nonspecic permeability is self-evident, but the role of broad-spectrum efux has come as a surprise. Its function is best understood in P. aeruginosa, where mutation at mexR upregulates the mexA-mexB-oprM operon and raises the MICs of b-lactams (except imipenem), uoroquinolones, tetracyclines, chloramphenicol, macrolides, various disinfectants, detergents, and organic solvents [20]. MexAB-OprM also plays a roleperhaps coincidentallyin excretion of the quorumsensing mediator, homoserine lactone. Even in typical P. aeruginosa isolates, MexAB-OprM is expressed to some degree and accounts for much of the resistance previously ascribed to impermeability [21]. Isolates with further upregulation have additional resistance to substrate drugs (table 1). P. aeruginosa strains have 3 further well-characterized efux systems, 2 of which (MexCD-Opr J and MexEF-Opr N) are normally repressed but may be activated by mutation (table 1). The genomic sequence for P. aeruginosa suggests the presence of at least 5 further efux systems, which await even preliminary characterization [20]. Multidrug efux systems are also being reported in many other gram-negative bacteria, including En-

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Table 1.

Drug efux systems of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Regulatory gene mexR Mutation causing upregulation nalB (affects mexR) and nalC (lies outside mexR) nfxB nfxC

System MexAB-OprM

Substrates b-Lac (not imipenem), Cm, Em, Fq, Nv, Tm, Su, Tc, ethidium bromide, acriavine, SDS, aromatic hydrocarbons, irgasan, triclosan, homoserine lactone b-Lac (not imipenem), Cm, Em, Fq, Nv, Tm, Tc, ethidium bromide, acriavine, SDS, aromatic hydrocarbons, triclosan Cm, Fq, Tm, aromatic hydrocarbons, triclosan Agl, b-lac (not carbenicillin, ceftazidime or imipenem), Cm, Em, Fq, Nv, Tc

MexCD-OprJ MexEF-OprN MexXY-OprM

nfxB mexT mexZ

NOTE. Agl, aminoglycosides; b-lac, b-lactam; Cm, chloramphenicol; Em, erythromycin; Fq, uoroquinolones; Nv, novobiocin; SDS, sodium dodecyl sulfate; Su, sulfonamides; Tc, tetracycline; Tm, trimethoprim. Data from [20, 21].

terobacteriaceae as well as other nonfermenters [20, 22]. At a functional level, the role of broad-spectrum efux pumps may be to remove amphipathic substances (i.e., those with hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts) from membranes, preventing disorganization. Such a cleaning role would account for their broad activity and wide distribution of these pumps, but their substrate recognition sites await elucidation Efux systems can be coregulated with porin expression. In P. aeruginosa, the nfxC mutation at mexT upregulates MexEFOprNmediated efux (table 1), and also reduces expression of OprD (D2 porin in older literature), thereby reducing permeability to carbapenems [23]. In E. coli (and, probably, other Enterobacteriaceae), mutation at mar simultaneously affects the expression of 160 genes [24] reducing, inter alia, expression of porin OmpF and upregulating AcrAB, which is implicated in the efux of b-lactams, uoroquinolones, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, dyes, and detergents [25]. If mutational resistance emerges at high frequency without deleterious side effects, it can swiftly undermine an antibacterials utility by allowing multifocal emergence of resistance wherever the drug is used. Several antimicrobial groups introduced in the 1980s and 1990s are prone to mutational resistance, at least with some species. Early optimism about uoroquinolones against staphylococci was dispelled by the discovery that resistance emerged by upregulation of NorA-mediated efux [26]. Oxyimino-aminothiazolyl cephalosporins at rst appeared almost universally active against Enterobacter, Citrobacter, and Serratia spp., but it soon became apparent that activity depended on a failure to induce chromosomal AmpC b-lactamases [27]. Activity was lost against derepressed mutants, which hyperproduce AmpC b-lactamases independently of induction. Such mutants arise at frequencies of 10 5 to 10 7 and are selected in 20% of patients treated with cephalosporins for Enterobacter bacteremia, with this selection often leading to clinical failures [28]. Although imipenem evades this mechanism, imipenem resistance emerges readily in P. aeruginosa by loss of the OprD porin, which provides carbapenem-specic pores through the outer membrane [29, 30]. Most recently,

there has been concern about linezolid resistance emerging in enterococci or, more rarely, in Staphylococcus aureus via modication of the domain V of 23S rRNA, which contains the drugs binding site. Mutational resistance to linezolid is difcult to obtain in vitro, apparently because the bacteria have multiple copies of the encoding gene, with modication of more than one copy required for resistance. Nevertheless, linezolid resistance can be selected in vivo, particularly in difcult-to-reach infections, those requiring prolonged therapy and if the drug is underdosed [31, 32]. It is not clear whether DNA recombination events follow the mutation of one gene copy or whether multiple gene copies undergo sequential mutations, perhaps by induction of a transient hypermutability (above). ACQUISITION OF RESISTANCE BY DNA TRANSFER DNA transfer among bacteria is critical to the dissemination of resistance and has recently been reviewed [33]. Transfer of DNA is most often via plasmids. These existed long before humans used antibacterials but did not then carry resistance determinants, or rarely did so [34]. Since the advent of the antibacterial era, plasmids have, however, proved to be the ideal vehicles for recruitment and dissemination of resistance genes. Within plasmids, resistance genes are often carried by transposons, which can shuttle determinants between more and less promiscuous plasmids, or into and out of the chromosome. Some transposons are directly transmissible between bacteria, particularly (but not exclusively) among gram-positive species. Resistance genes also may be transferred by lysogenic bacteriophage. This latter mechanism seems likely with the mecA determinant staphylococci, which has never been located on mobile DNA but which has spread among a few S. aureus lineages, and among different coagulase-negative species [35]. Integrons are natural recombination systems that facilitate the acquisition and expression of resistance determinants behind a single promoter. They are widely distributed among gram-negative bacteria, often occurring within plasmids and
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Table 2. DNA.

Sources of b-lactamase resistance genes now found on transferable

Gene(s) or product(s) SHV b-lactamases CTX-M2,4,5,6,7 and Toho-1 b-lactamases CMY-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, LAT-1, -2, -3, -4, BIL-1 AmpC b-lactamases ACC-1 AmpC b-lactamases DHA-1 and -2 AmpC b-lactamases TEM, OXA,a PSE, staphylococcal penicillinase
a

Source Klebsiella pneumoniae chromosome Kluyvera spp. chromosome Citrobacter freundii chromosome Hafnia alvei chromosome Morganella morganii chromosome Unknown

Although source organisms for plasmid-mediated OXA enzymes have not been identied, some Aeromonas spp. have chromosomal enzymes belonging to this family.

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transposons, and are particularly important in the dissemination of resistance genes to sulfonamides (sul1), and streptomycin (aadA3) [36]. Other genes often located in integrons include those for various OXA, PSE, VIM, and IMP b-lactamases and for many aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes [36, 37]. In principle, integrons have a fearsome capacity for the recruitment, spread, and expression of resistance genes, and surveys show that they are widespread among gram-negative bacteria in countries as far apart as The Netherlands and Taiwan [38, 39]. Nevertheless, it is striking that the most successful blactamase genes (i.e., blaTEM derivatives) are carried directly by transposons, not within integrons, whereas the integron-associated OXA and PSE b-lactamases are considerably rarer [27]. Similarly with sulfonamide resistance: sul2, which is not integron-associated, is increasing in prevalence among E. coli in the UK, whereas sul1, which is integron-determined, is stable in prevalence, or declining [40]. It is notable also that the composition of integrons is more stable over time than might be expected [38]. In short, integrons are important, but their importance should not be overplayed relative to that of other vehicles of resistance. The dissemination of plasmids, transposons, and integrons among bacteria and species give rise to so-called gene epidemics. Plasmids encoding the TEM plasmid-mediated b-lactamases were rst recognized in 1965 but have since spread varying with the country, unit, and speciesto 30%60% of clinical Enterobacteriaceae, to a few P. aeruginosa, and to anywhere between 1%50% of Haemophilus inuenzae and Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates [27]. Other determinants that have spread extremely widely include erm, sul1, sul2 strA, strB, aad3, tetA, and tetM. tetM has spread in both gram-positive and gram-negative organisms, but more generally, the genes of gram-positive and gram-negative species are distinct [41]. The factors that determine whether a mobile gene will spread widely are poorly understood. TEM-2 b-lactamase differs from TEM1 by a single amino acid substitution, confers similar resistance, is coded by similarly promiscuous plasmids and transposons,
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and has been known for almost as long. Nevertheless, for no obvious reason, it is 10-fold less prevalent that TEM-1 b-lactamase in every country and species surveyed [27]. Many of the resistance determinants now found on plasmids are believed to have originated in the chromosomes of other species, although only a few of their source organisms have been identied denitively. The plasmid-mediated SHV b-lactamases are derived from the chromosomal b-lactamases of Klebsiella pneumoniae; the plasmid-borne AmpC enzymes emerging in Klebsiella spp. and E. coli are chromosomal escapes from Citrobacter freundii, Hafnia alvei, Morganella morganii, and Enterobacter cloacae [42, 43], and several CTX-M cefotaximases are chromosomal escapes from Kluyvera spp. [44] (table 2). Some resistance determinants to nonb-lactam drugs seemingly originated in antibiotic-producing streptomycetes, which must protect themselves against their own products. Examples include several aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes and the erm determinants, which have products that methylate 23S rRNA so as to block binding of macrolides, lincosamides, and group B streptogramins [45]. Also, the genes that encode the d-alad-ala ligases are critical to glycopeptide resistance in enterococci (and now also S. aureus [46, 47]). Many plasmids and transposons carry multiple resistance genes conferring resistance to different antibacterials, and selection for any one determinant may conserve the entire plasmid and its resistances. The frequent consequence is multidrug resistance, as illustrated in table 3, which shows that klebsiellae with extended-spectrum b-lactamases (ESBL) were more often resistant to aminoglycosides and uoroquinolones than those without ESBLs [48, 49]. ESBLs and aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes may be encoded by single plasmids, but the uoroquinolone resistance, also seen in an excess of the ESBL producers, is chromosomal and independent. The problems of multiresistance are increasing and becoming more complex. When plasmid electrophoresis was developed in the 1970s, it was uncommon to see isolates with 123 plasmids, and plasmid proles were used to dene strain epide-

Table 3. Multidrug resistance among Klebsiella spp. collected in 2 European surveys of isolates from intensive care units.
1994 survey ESBL positive (n p 220) 23 76 52 31a ESBL negative (n p 746) 77 8 3 2 19971998 survey ESBL positive (n p 110) 25 72 61 31 ESBL negative (n p 323) 75 10 4 7

Resistance Klebsiellae with the indicated ESBL phenotype Gentamicin resistance Amikacin resistance Ciprooxacin resistant
NOTE.
a

Data are percentage of isolates. ESBL, extended-spectrum b-lactamase. Data from [42, 43].

Declined to 10% if members of a single widespread clone were discounted.

miology. Nowadays, it is common to encounter Enterobacteriaceae with 56 plasmids; moreover, plasmid proles often vary greatly within the strains dened by PFGE [50]. These observations (which complicate epidemiological analysis) reect the gain and loss of plasmids by different representatives of the same strain and the gain and loss of genes among different representation of the same plasmid. Even when genes are not gained or lost, multiple copies of the same plasmid may carry different variants of a b-lactamase gene, reecting mutation. Thus, for example, some members of a K. pneumoniae strain from Turkey had SHV-3 b-lactamase, whereas others had SHV5 (table 4) [50]. More strikingly, 84 blaTEM and blaSHV copies were found among just 25 K. pneumoniae isolates collected at one hospital in Durban, South Africa [51]. A few speciesNeisseria spp., Haemophilus spp., and a-hemolytic streptococcican absorb and incorporate DNA released by dead cells of related organisms, allowing the generation of mosaic genes [52]. This mechanism is absent from most other species, which restrict incoming DNA. Mosaic gene formation, acting in combination with mutation, is the basis of emerging penicillin resistance in pneumococci and of blactamaseindependent ampicillin or penicillin resistance in H. inuenzae and Neisseria spp.; it is also implicated in sulfonamide resistance in H. inuenzae [53].

EPIDEMIOLOGY OF RESISTANCE: LOCAL, NATIONAL, AND INTERNATIONAL At one level, the epidemiology of resistance is extremely local. Most outbreaks and clusters involve a few patients in a unit, and the prevalence of resistance is often highest in those units where the most vulnerable patients are congregated and where antibacterial use consequently is heaviest. Archibald et al. [54] found 2-fold higher rates of methicillin resistance among staphylococci, ceftazidime resistance among E. cloacae and P. aeruginosa, imipenem resistance among P. aeruginosa, and vancomycin resistance among enterococci in patients in ICUs than

in patients in general wards or outpatients at the same hospitals. In virtually all European countries, the prevalence of methicillinresistant S. aureus is higher in ICUs than in general wards [55]. At another level, the epidemiology of resistance is national. In Europe, the common pattern is for resistance to increase in prevalence as one moves southward: it is lowest in Scandinavia and highest in the Mediterranean countries. In North America, resistance rates are mostly higher in the United States than in Canada. Some of the worst resistance rates are in the newly prosperous countries of East Asia and South America. A few examples: methicillin-resistant strains comprise 30%45% of all S. aureus from bacteremias in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom and 10%15% in Germany and Austria, but !1% in the Netherlands and Scandinavia (see, e.g., European Animicrobial Resistance Surveillance System, http:// www.earss.rivm.nl). In Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam, 70%80% of S. pneumoniae are resistant or intermediately resistant to penicillin, compared with 30%40% in France and Spain, 5%10% in the United Kingdom, and 1%2% in Scandinavia [5658]. As a nal example, gentamicin resistance in E. coli remains considerably more frequent in most Southern European countries and the United States than in the United Kingdom, where it occurs in !3% of isolates [57]. Finally, the epidemiology of resistance is partly international, with some transferable determinants prevalent worldwide. The epidemiology is also international to the extent that some resistant strains spread between countries and continents. Multidrug-resistant pneumococci of serotype 6B were imported from Spain into Iceland, apparently by nasopharyngeal carriage in the children of returning holidaymakers [59]. These pneumococci then became established in child care centers in Iceland, causing an increase in the penicillin resistance rate from 1% in 1988 to 17% in 1993. Other penicillin-resistant pneumococci of serotype 23F have spread from Spain to the Far East, the Americas, and South Africa [60]. On a smaller scale, many of the few E. coli and Klebsiella spp. with plasmid-mediated AmpC b-lactamases in the United Kingdom are epiBacterial Resistance CID 2003:36 (Suppl 1) S15

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Table 4. Diverse b-lactamases and resistances of multiple representatives of a serotype K62 Klebsiella pneumoniae strain collected at an intensive care unit in Istanbul, Turkey.
MIC, mg/L Isolate 1951 1953 1954 1959 1964
NOTE.

Gentamicin 8 16 8 16 16

Aztreonam 512 512 8 512 512

Ceftazidime 1024 1024 32 512 512

Ceftriaxone 256 256 0.5 512 256

Piperacillintazobactam 4 4 1024 1024 512

b-Lactamase SHV-5 SHV-3 SHV-3 SHV-5 SHV-3 TEM TEM TEM TEM

Data from [50]. All 5 representatives had the same DNA prole as investigated by PFGE.

demiologically linked to the Indian subcontinent, where there is evidence of local frequency in Punjab [61, 62]. Last, PER-1 ESBL was rst recorded from a P. aeruginosa isolate collected in France [63] and shortly afterward was found in numerous P. aeruginosa, Salmonella, and Acinetobacter spp. isolates from several cities in Turkey [64]. An inquiry revealed that the original source patient in France was a Turk, visiting for treatment [65].

EPIDEMIC RESISTANT STRAINS Successful epidemic strains are critical to the accumulation of many resistances. Common vectors in hospitals are contact with staff members, contact with nonsterile devices, or procedures. Spread in the community is favored by those factors that have aided epidemics throughout history: crowding and travel. Many strains, resistant or otherwise, spread locally, but a few achieve a much wider distribution. The international spread of penicillin-resistant pneumococcal lineages was mentioned above, but further examples abound. In England and Wales, the proportion of S. aureus bacteremias caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) was steady at 1%3% from 1989 to 1993 but increased rapidly afterward, reaching 42% by 2000 [57]. The beginning of this increase coincided with the emergence of 2 new epidemic (E) strains, EMRSA 15 and 16, and recent analysis shows that these now account for 193% of all S. aureus bacteremias in England and Wales [66]. In France, a serotype K25 K. pneumoniae strain with SHV-4 b-lactamase and crossresistance to amikacin and ciprooxacin has disseminated widely, having been reported repeatedly since 1988, rst around Paris and subsequently in hospitals from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean, with reports also from Ghent in Belgium [50, 67, 68]. A survey of ESBLs among 966 klebsiellae in 1994 included 35 centers, only 5 of them in France, yet this single strain accounted for 52 of 220 ESBL producers collected [50]. Also in France and Belgium, an Enterobacter aerogenes strain with TEM-24 b-lactamase and multiresistance to aminoglycosides, quinolones, and, occasionally (via porin loss), carbapenems has become widely established [69]. Other examples
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where resistance has a major clonal element include Burkholderia cepacia from cystic brosis patients [70] and Salmonella typhimurium, where major recent problems (now perhaps declining) have been associated with the intercontinental spread of multidrug-resistant lineages of denitive type DT104 [71, 72]. In the case of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, recent studies by amplied DNA restriction fragment-length polymorphism suggest that epidemic strains from hospitals in Europe, the United States, and Australia, although differing from place to place, are more closely related to each other than to sporadic and agricultural isolates [73]. Other strains with similar resistances to these epidemic organisms are recorded, often in the same hospitals or patient groups, but these fail to spread extensively or fail to spread at all. The reason for epidemic success remain obscure, but potential factorsnot mutually exclusiveinclude the following: (1) increased adherence to host cells or prosthetic materials, (2) greater tolerance of desiccation, (3) elevated resistance to disinfectants, (4) faster growth rates, and (5) better adaptation to the tness cost of resistance. Hard evidence for the role of any of these factors is scanty for many particular strains, and studies are confounded by the fact that researchers, having found one fact that may contribute to epidemic success, then concentrate on that factor in isolation. In the case of the successful serotype K25 K. pneumoniae strain from France and Belgium, one report suggests a plasmid-mediated mbrial antigen that aids adherence to the gut mucosa [74]. Local variation, national variation, and role of epidemic strains should be borne in mind when undertaking and assessing prevalence surveys. Grandiloquent statements about resistance rates in Europe or the Western Pacic abound in the literature but often are based on surveys with a very few centers per country, and with the extent of resistance differing greatly among the countries included within a region. The variation in resistance prevalence between Stockholm and Madrid, it should be noted, is vastly greater than between Boston and San Francisco. Inferences on the general distribution of resistance likewise should not be made on the basis of data for

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Figure 1. Complications among patients with peritonitis, in relation to whether initial empirical treatment was appropriate (group 1, white); was changed from inappropriate to appropriate after isolation of resistant bacteria (group 2, gray); or was not changed despite the isolation of resistant bacteria (group 3, black). Data are replotted from Mosdell et al. [77]. For total complications and reoperation, there were signicant differences (P ! .01, x2 test) between groups 1 and 3, and for abscess formation between groups 1 and 2 and between 1 and 3. Differences in wound infection rates do not achieve statistical signicance. Average lengths of stay were 10.9, 14.8, and 19.0 days for group 1, 2, and 3 patients, respectively, with a signicant difference (P ! .01, paired t test) between groups 1 and 3.

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isolates from ICUs, where resistance rates are commonly higher than among isolates overall [54, 55]. A naland biggersource of bias, particularly for surveys of community isolates, is that microbiological investigations are more likely to be performed for recalcitrant infections, which may be recalcitrant because they are caused by resistant bacteria. Thus, MacGowan et al. [75] found that only 3% of patients presenting with respiratory symptoms to general practitioners in Bristol received microbiological investigation and that the apparent prevalence of ampicillin resistance among H. inuenzae isolates decreased from 22% to 11% when all the presenting patients had sputum culture performed.

IMPACT OF RESISTANCE The consequences of resistance are harder to dene than microbiologists, health care managers, and politicians might wish. Some patients recover despite inadequate treatment, exactly as some recovered before antibacterials were available. The infection of others failed to respond despite appropriate therapy. In compromised patients, it often remains debatable whether infection or an underlying disease was ultimately fatal. Perhaps the clearest link between in vitro resistance and in vivo responses for penicillin and gonorrhea. Classical strains with MIC 0.06 mg/L respond to penicillin at low doses; those with chromosomally mediated resistance (MIC 0.252 mg/L) respond to high-dose penicillin; and those with b-lactamase cannot be cured by any achievable level of penicillin. However, gonorrhea is an uncomplicated infection mostly caught by those in otherwise good health! Elsewhere, relationships are less clear and pseudomonal infection in cystic brosis presents the

opposite extreme. Drugs that are active in vitro consistently fail to eliminate infection, whereas some of those that entirely lack in vitro antipseudomonal activity (e.g., erythromycin) often ameliorate the symptoms of infection [76]. Most correlations fall between these extremes. Analysis by Mosdell et al. [77] showed that the incidence of complications, including reoperation, abscess formation, and wound infection, increased 2-fold if empirical therapy for intra-abdominal sepsis failed to cover all the pathogens subsequently isolated and that the length of hospital stay was likewise extended (gure 1). The incidence of complications rose further if inadequate empirical regimen was not modied when resistant pathogens were isolated. In recent analyses, Kollef and Ward [78] and Ibrahim et al. [79] found 2-fold higher mortality among ICU patients and those with ventilator-associated pneumonia when the pathogens proved resistant to the antibacterials used empirically (gure 2). Many of the failures in these series reected infection by P. aeruginosa or MRSA, which were not well covered by the empirical regimens routinely used. Risk factors for isolation of these pathogens and so for poor outcomes included previous use of antibacterials and previous hospitalization. Such factors, as well as the likely pathogens and their likely local resistance patterns, should always be taken into account when designing empirical regimens for hospital units. It should be added that the science of pharmacodynamics is allowing more precise modeling of the probability of cure of a given pathogen in a given infection, underscoring the fact that for many infection types, there is a strong relationship between in vitro susceptibility and outcome. These aspects are addressed elsewhere in this supplement by Drusano [80]. Increased morbidity and mortality are the most dramatic
Bacterial Resistance CID 2003:36 (Suppl 1) S17

Figure 2. Mortality among critically ill patients in intensive care (n p 655 ) in relation to whether empirical therapy was appropriate (gray) or inappropriate (black) in relation to the resistances of the bacteria subsequently isolated. Reproduced with permission from Ibrahim et al. [79].
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consequence of resistance. Other effects are more insidious. Physicians and surgeons are forced to use previously reserved agents as rst-line therapy. These may be inherently less potent or more toxic that classical regimens: vancomycin is increasingly used as a rst-line antistaphylococcal (and for prophylaxis) but is less convenient to administer safely and less bactericidal than the semisynthetic antistaphylococcal penicillins, which themselves are 100-fold less active than benzylpenicillin against fully susceptible staphylococci. Previously reserved agentsnow used earliermay be undermined by resistance. The accumulation of cephalosporin-resistant bacteria is driving the earlier clinical use of carbapenems and is a reasonable justication for the development of oral and long half-life carbapenems. Nevertheless, the selection pressure that mass use of these will cause is disturbing, coming precisely when the number of reported carbapenemases is growing sharply [81]. Finally, resistance adds cost: treatment failures extend the length of hospital stay or demand repeated physician visits; hospital beds are blocked to new patients, and productive time is lost. If new or hitherto reserved antibacterials are needed as therapy, these are usually more expensive than previous regimens. These costs seem unlikely to decline in the future, especially with the growing demand of regulators and the new costs of genomics-based drug discovery. A new antibacterial already costs $0.5 billion to develop; this sum and the nancing costs (for the $0.5 billion is spent before income is generated) must be recouped in the 1012 years of patent life remaining after the compound is launched. RESPONSES TO RESISTANCE Concern about resistance increased in the late 1990s. Since then, many governmental and agency reports have been published, adding to those of professional societies [8284]. These reports vary in emphasis, especially as regards the agricultural use of antibacterials, but all advise (1) less use of antibacterials, (2)

more appropriate choices of antibacterials and regimens, (3) prevention of cross-infection, and (4) development of new antibacterials. Measuring the effect of these charges demands better surveillance of resistance prevalence and of prescribing. Optimists hold that it may be possible to reverse resistance trends, and pessimists hold that it may only be possible to slow the accumulation of resistance sufciently to keep one step ahead of bacterial evolution. EFFECTS OF REDUCED PRESCRIBING In a few cases, reductions in prescribing at a national level have been followed by a reduced prevalence of resistance. In one example of success, the prevalence of penicillin-resistant pneumococci in Iceland was reduced from 19.3% (1993) to 14% (19982000) after a 12.9% reduction in drug use [85]. In Finland, a national advisory to reduce prescribing of macrolides was followed by a decline in use from 3 doses/1000 population per month in 1988 to 1.1 doses/1000 population per month in 1994 and by a decrease in the prevalence of erythromycinresistant Streptococcus pyogenes from 19% in 1993 to 8.5% in 1996 [86]. By 1998, however, macrolide use had increased to 2.1 doses/1000 population per month, and the resistance rate among S. pyogenes was back to 18% (Bacterial Resistance to Antimicrobial Agents in Finland FINRES 1999; http://www .mmm./el/julk/nres99en.htm). In both these cases, the resistances displaced were associated with clonal strainstwo widely disseminated S. pyogenes lineages in Finland [87]and, in Iceland, the serotype 6B S. pneumoniae strain mentioned earlier. Displacement seems more difcult when resistances are multiple and linked and when they have disseminated among different strains. Resistance to streptomycin and chloramphenicol remains frequent in gram-negative bacteria, although these drugs have fallen into virtual disuse in humans, and are compromised by mechanisms that do not directly affect any antibacterial that remains in extensive human use [88]. As a further

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Table 5. Incidence of colonization and infection with vancomycin-resistant enterococci in a London hematology unit in relation to preferred empirical therapy
No. of infections with vancomycin-resistant enterococci/total no. of patients 5/75 0/70 0/59 3/58

Phase 1 2a 2b 3
a

Empirical therapy for fever Ceftazidime Pip/tazo Pip/tazo infection control reinforced infection control reinforced infection control reinforced

Colonized with vancomycin-resistant enterococci, % 57 29 8 36

Ceftazidime

Each phase was dened as a 4-month period; identical regimens were used in phases 2a and 2b.

example of the difculty of displacing resistance, sulfonamide use in the United Kingdom declined by 97% during 19911999 after national advice to prescribe trimethoprim instead of co-trimoxazole, but the prevalence of sulfonamide resistance among E. coli in London remained virtually constant, at 39%45% [40]. The continued prevalence of resistance in disused antibacterials begs the question, Why? Potential contributory factors include continued agricultural use andas was shown with the sulfonamide resistance in E. coli from London [78] linkage of resistance determinants within large multiresistance plasmids. More generally, evolution acts to favor those determinants that exert the least tness cost on their host bacteria and those strain variants in which this cost is minimized. Thus, once antibacterials have been used heavily for long periods, evolution seems likely to have honed the resistant strains. Laboratory experiments illustrate how this process may arise. An E. coli strain with a tetracycline resistance plasmid initially grew more slowly than its plasmid-free parent, but after 500 generations, it grew 6% more rapidly [89]. Similarly, the growth rate of a streptomycin-resistant E. coli mutant was initially suppressed by 12%14%, but after repeated subculture, it grew only 6% more slowly than the parent strain [90]. Such welladapted strains are unlikely to be swiftly displaced. Plasmids themselves should perhaps be seen as selsh genomes, seeking their own perpetuation, and not as mere possessions of their host bacteria. Some plasmids have specic binding sites to the chromosome, favoring segregation with each daughter cell. Others encode plasmid addition systems determining both a long half-life toxin and a homologous but less stable antitoxin. So long as the plasmid is present, antitoxin is manufactured and the cell survives, but residual toxin kills any daughter cell that fails to inherit a plasmid copy [91]. Such factors maintain plasmid carriage within populations, increasing the pressure to minimize the tness cost. It remains plausible (but unproven) that a generalized reduction in prescribing may lead to a reduction in resistance prevalence. An answer may be forthcom-

ing. Since an annual peak in 19961997 (the British nancial year runs from April to March), antibacterial prescriptions in the community have decreased by 23.4% and veterinary use by 25%. FORMULARY CHANGES AND RESISTANCE PATTERNS Although there are few examples of reducing resistance on any large scale, there are many examples of altered (rather than reduced) prescribing being followed by changes in the local epidemiology of resistance. A formulary switch to amikacin was followed, over several years, by declining gentamicin resistance among opportunistic gram-negative bacteria [92, 93]. More recently, Bradley et al. [94] found that a formulary switch from empirical ceftazidime to piperacillin-tazobactam in neutropenic fevers, together with reinforced infection control, was associated with reduced colonization and infection by vancomycin-resistant enterococci (table 5). A return to empirical ceftazidime was followed by a reemergence of vancomycinresistant enterococci, despite continued emphasis on infection control. Other examples of apparent success include reductions in the prevalence of AmpC-derepressed Enterobacter spp. after a formulary switch from ceftazidime to cefepime [95] and of cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae after switches to piperacillin-tazobactam or carbapenems [9698]. These examples highlight positive consequence, but caveats should be noted. First, changes that achieve positive consequences are perhaps more likely to be reported than those that fail to do so. Second, others who followed these strategies were not always so successful. Formulary switches from gentamicin to amikacin have been associated with increasing amikacin resistance [99]. Third, authors often concentrate on one pathogen and demote other effects; thus, deaths owing to multidrugresistant gram-negative bacteria occurred in both the ceftazidime and piperacillin-tazobactam arms of the study outlined in table 5 [94], and a formulary switch from cephalosporins

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to imipenem was followed by the emergence of imipenemresistant Acinetobacter and P. aeruginosa as well as by a decline in cephalosporin-resistant klebsiellae [96, 100]. Among opportunistic infections in the seriously ill, the cynic can argue that resistance is like a balloon: squeeze it on one side, and it bulges on the other. It is salutary to emphasize how much remains unknown. Does drug cycling have positive effects, or does it lead to the accumulation of multidrug-resistant strains [101]? At what prevalence of resistance should empirical therapy be changed in different types of infection? To what extent does combination therapy militate against resistance (except in the case of tuberculosis, where its value is beyond dispute)? What are the relative selectivities of different antibacterials, allowing that a recent Finnish study found a correlation between macrolide use and resistance in S. pneumoniae but not between penicillin use and resistance [102]? Is it in any way desirable to encourage all community physicians to use the same therapies in the same indications, or is it wiser to make the selection pressure more diffuse [103]? What is the ideal duration of therapy, allowing that underdosing may fail to eliminate the least susceptible members of the original population and that excessive duration may exacerbate disruption of the normal ora? Are drugs with unlinked resistances (e.g., fosfomycin, nitrofurantoin, rifampin, and fucidin) to be favored as unlikely to select multiresistance plasmids or avoided because they may select hypermutable strains primed to develop further resistances? The new respiratory quinolones exemplify a further conundrum. As a result of greater antipneumococcal activity, they are less likely to than ciprooxacin to select rst-step quinolone-resistant mutants of S. pneumoniae; however, they are less active than ciprooxacin against Enterobacteriaceae and may be selective for resistance in the gut microora [104], which is gratuitously exposed.

achieved one of the worlds highest prevalence rates for penicillin-resistant pneumococci [105]. Moreover, the argument assumes a vacuum in which no new drugs are developed. This assumption, made in many reports on resistance, is already untrue for gram-positive pathogens [106]. Concerns about resistance have led to the banning of most agricultural growth promoters in Europe. Such concerns are also used to support wider objections to intensive farming and to the genetic modication of crop plants (where unexpressed resistance genes remain within the cloning vectors). Less is said on the other aspects of modern life that potentially exacerbate resistance: large hospitals; the concentration of the very young and very old in socialized care; and increasing travel. Action on these would be socially and politically impossible, even if they are more pertinent to the sum total of resistance than the use (recently banned in the European Union) of zinc bacitracin as a agricultural growth promoter! Perhaps the contradictions are best exemplied by the World Health Organization, which argues on the one hand for effective, affordable antibacterials for all the worlds population and on the other hand expresses concern about the worldwide accumulation of resistance (World Health Organization Report on Infectious Diseases 2000, http://www.who.int/infectious-disease-report/2000/ index.html). Both concerns are ethical, humane, and honorablebut counterpoised.

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CONCLUSIONS Antibacterial resistance is complex and dynamic. Although the major genetic and biochemical mechanisms have long been recognized, new factors continue to be discovered, including integrons, multidrug efux, hypermutability, and plasmid addiction. Within many individual isolates, the complexity of resistance is increasing, with multiple determinants carried, and with genes being gained, amplied, and lost. Many international resistance problems reect the spread of a few multidrug-resistant strains, but the reasons underlying the success of particular lineages remain almost universally obscure. Resistance is a signicant cause of excess morbidity, mortality, and cost. Numerous reports have emphasized the need for less and better use of antibacterials, improved infection control, and the development of new agents. However, reductions in antibacterial use do not always lead to reduced resistance, perhaps because bacteria are now well adapted to the carriage of resistance. It is probably naive to anticipate reaching a grand control over resistance, and attempts should center on management rather than elimination, with the objective of slowing the development of new resistance while continuing to develop new agents at a sufcient rate to keep ahead of the bacteria.

SOCIAL CONTEXT The scientic answers to these questions on antibacterial use are uncertain, and to complicate matters, the whole problem of resistance is intertwined with moral, social, political, and commercial issues. Concern about resistance is used as ammunition for other agendas, most obviously including marketing by the pharmaceutical industry and cost containment within managed or socialized health care. To some extent, the individual patient gains when powerful antibacterials are used early, but the resistance risks for society are raised. In reality, matters are complex. Failed treatments with old and simple drugs may lead to more severe disease or to the spread of infection, resulting in a demand for further therapy, along with its contingent selection pressure. Hungary, before 1989, had a restricted list of antibacterials for community prescription, yet

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