Tag: antibiotics

Categories : AntibioticsTags :

Fungal Microbiota May Explain Antibiotics’ Long Term Effects in Infants

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Gut microbiome. Credit: Darryl Leja, NIH

In infants treated with antibiotics, fungal gut microbiota are more abundant and diverse compared with the control group even six weeks following the start of the antibiotic course, according to a study published in the Journal of Fungi. The study’s authors suggest that reduced competition from gut bacteria being killed by antibiotics left more space for fungi to multiply.

“The results of our research strongly indicate that bacteria in the gut regulate the fungal microbiota and keep it under control. When bacteria are disrupted by antibiotics, fungi, Candida in particular, have the chance to reproduce,” explained PhD student Rebecka Ventin-Holmberg from the University of Helsinki.

A new key finding in the study was that the changes in the fungal gut microbiota, together with the bacterial microbiota, may be partly responsible for the long-term adverse effects of antibiotics on human health.

Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs for infants, causing changes in the gut microbiota at its most important developmental stage. These changes are more long-term compared to those in adults.

“Antibiotics can have adverse effects on both the bacterial and the fungal microbiota, which can result in, for example, antibiotic-associated diarrhoea,” Ventin-Holmberg said.

“In addition, antibiotics increase the risk of developing chronic inflammatory diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and they have been found also to have a link to overweight,” she added.

These long-term effects are thought to be caused, at least in part, by an imbalance in the gut microbiota.

This study involved infants with a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection who had never previously received antibiotics. While some of the children were given antibiotics due to complications, others received no antibiotic therapy throughout the study.

“Investigating the effects of antibiotics is important for the development of techniques that can be used to avoid chronic inflammatory diseases and other disruptions to the gut microbiota in the future,” Ventin-Holmberg emphasised.

While there have been many studies on the effect of antibiotics on bacterial microbiota, there has been a lack of studies on fungal microbiota. This study’s findings indicate that fungal microbiota may also have a role in the long-term effects of imbalance in the gut microbiota.

“Consequently, future research should focus on all micro-organisms in the gut together to better understand their interconnections and to obtain a better overview of the microbiome as a whole,” Ventin-Holmberg noted.

Source: University of Helsinki

Categories : Antibiotics UncategorizedTags :

It’s in the Mix: Certain Combinations of Pathogens Resist Antibiotics

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Pseudomonas
Scanning Electron Micrograph of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Credit: CDC/Janice Carr

A study has found that much higher doses of antibiotics are needed to eliminate a bacterial infection of the airways when certain other microbes are present. This helps explain why treatment often fails to treat respiratory infections in people with diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

The study’s researchers, whose findings are published in The ISME Journal, say that even a low level of one type of microbe in the airways can have a significant impact on the response of other microbes to antibiotics.

The results highlight the need to consider the interaction between different species of microbe when treating infections with antibiotics – and to adjust dosage accordingly.

“People with chronic infections often have co-infection with several pathogens, but the problem is we don’t take that into account in deciding how much of a particular antibiotic to treat them with. Our results might help explain why, in these people, the antibiotics just don’t work as well as they should,” said Thomas O’Brien, PhD candidate and co-first author.

Chronic bacterial infections such as those in the human airways are very difficult to cure using antibiotics. Although these types of infection are often associated with a single pathogenic species, the infection site is frequently co-colonised by a number of other microbes, most of which are not usually pathogenic in their own right.

Treatment options usually revolve around targeting the pathogen, and take little account of the co-habiting species. However, these treatments often fail to resolve the infection. Until now scientists have had little insight into why this is.

To get their results the team developed a simplified model of the human airways, containing artificial sputum designed to chemically resemble the real thing, packed with bacteria.

The model allowed them to grow a mixture of different microbes, including pathogens, in a stable way for weeks at a time. This is a novel approach, as usually one pathogen will rapidly outgrow the others and spoil the experiment. It enabled the researchers to replicate and study poly-microbial infections in the laboratory.

The three microbes used in the experiment were the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, and the fungus Candida albicans – a combination often found in the airways of cystic fibrosis patients.

The researchers treated this microbial mix with colistin, which kills P. aeruginosa effectively. But when the other pathogens were present alongside P. aeruginosa, the antibiotic didn’t work.

“We were surprised to find that an antibiotic that we know should clear an infection of Pseudomonas effectively just didn’t work in our lab model when other bugs were present,” said Wendy Figueroa-Chavez at the University of Cambridge, joint first author of the paper.

The same effect happened when the microbial mix was treated with fusidic acid – an antibiotic that specifically targets Staphylococcus aureus, and with fluconazole, which specifically targets C. albicans.

The researchers found that significantly higher doses of each antibiotic were needed to kill bacteria when it was part of poly-microbial infection, compared to when no other pathogens were present.

“All three species-specific antibiotics were less effective against their target when three pathogens were present together,” said Professor Martin Welch at the University of Cambridge, senior author of the paper.

Currently, antibiotics are usually only lab tested against the targeted pathogen, to determine the lowest effective dose. But when the same dose is used to treat infection in a person it is often ineffective, and this study helps to explain why. The new model system will enable the effectiveness of potential new antibiotics to be tested against a mixture of microbe species together.

Poly-microbial infections are common in the airways of people with cystic fibrosis. Despite treatment with strong doses of antibiotics, these infections often persist long-term. Chronic infections of the airways in people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) are also often poly-microbial.

Genetically analysing the Pseudomonas in their lab-grown mix, the researchers were able to pinpoint specific mutations that give rise to this antibiotic resistance. The mutations were found to arise more frequently when other pathogens were also present.

Comparison with the genetic code of 800 samples of Pseudomonas from around the world revealed that these mutations have also occurred in human patients who had been infected with Pseudomonas and treated with colistin.

“The problem is that as soon as you use an antibiotic to treat a microbial infection, the microbe will start to evolve resistance to that antibiotic. That’s what has happened since colistin started to be used in the early 1990’s. This is another reminder of the vital need to find new antibiotics to treat human infections,” said Prof Welch.

Source: University of Cambridge

Categories : AntibioticsTags :

New Insights on Antibiotic-caused Diarrhoea

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Streptococcus pneumoniae. Credit: CDC

A study may have found that a effects on a key gut bacteria are the reason why some patients experience diarrhoea after receiving the widely prescribed antibiotic amoxicillin-clavulanate. 

Researchers, reporting in the journal iScience, found that the level of gut Ruminococcaceae, which plays a role in maintaining an individual’s gut health, strongly impacts diarrhoeal outcomes following antibiotic treatment.

One in three patients prescribed amoxicillin-clavulanate will develop diarrhoea. In some cases, it may be so severe that doctors have to prematurely halt the antibiotic, inadequately treating the infection or else forcing a change in antibiotics. The diarrhoea could also prolong patients’ hospital stays and further exposing them to hospital-acquired infections.

“The problem is very real for patients who are unable to take amoxicillin-clavulanate because it gives them diarrhoea, even though it is an effective and affordable antibiotic for their infection. Knowing why may help us identify those at risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, and devise treatment strategies in the future to minimise or avoid such adverse effects,” said lead researcher Dr Shirin Kalimuddin.

The study recruited 30 healthy volunteers, each receiving a three-day oral course of amoxicillin-clavulanate. Their stool samples were collected over four weeks and analysed using gene sequencing to look for changes in the gut microbiome.

Ruminococcaceae levels in the stools of study volunteers who developed diarrhoea were significantly lower when compared to those who did not, both before and during treatment with amoxicillin-clavulanate. This suggests that individuals may, depending on their gut composition, be predisposed to antibiotic-associated diarrhea. The team further devised a simple polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test based on levels of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, a species within the Ruminococcaceae family, that could potentially be used in clinical settings to quickly determine an individual’s risk of developing diarrhea with amoxicillin-clavulanate treatment.

“People respond differently to medication. Understanding this response and the ability to predict those at risk will help guide the development of point-of-care diagnostics,” said lead researcher Professor Eric J. Alm.

“While a lot of attention has been paid to how DNA influences a person’s response to medication, the impact of the gut microbiome on the human drug response has not been widely researched. Our findings provide evidence that an individual’s gut microbial composition can influence the risk of developing antibiotics-associated diarrhoea. Tested against amoxicillin-clavulanate, the study provides a framework to identify other potential causes of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea in relation to other classes of antibiotics,” added Prof Alm.

The next step would be a clinical trial to determine whether certain Ruminococcaceae could be used as a probiotic to prevent diarrhoea in patients prescribed antibiotics.

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : AntibioticsTags :

Nanoparticle and Antibiotic Polytherapy Defeats AMR Bacteria

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Polytherapy with PMB and cubosomes result in interactions with the bacterial OM in two consecutive ways: PMB initially interacts with the outer leaflet of OM via electrostatic interactions, leading to destabilised areas. Cubosomes then contact with the bilayer, causing further membrane perturbations via a lipid-exchange process. Credit: Monash University/Lai et al.

Researchers from Monash University have discovered a potential new method to circumvent antibiotic resistance, by means of a nanoparticle and antibiotic polytherapy. This approach could also reduce antibiotic intake.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to be among the top 10 global public health threats. A recent report found that in 2019, 1.27 million deaths were directly attributable to AMR infections – more than deaths from either HIV or TB.

AMR occurs when pathogens evolve to no longer respond to medicines, consequently infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

The study, which appears in Nature Communications, has found that the use of nanoparticles in combination with other antibiotics, is an effective strategy to improve bacterial killing.

For Gram-negative bacteria, polymyxins have been used as drugs of last resort as they disrupt the bacterial outer membrane (OM), causing it to become more permeable, causing cell contents to leak out and kill the bacteria.

The strategy involves administering polymyxin B (PMB) alongside cube-shaped nanoparticles called cubosomes. The PMB disrupted the OM first, but not enough to kill the cell. When the accompanying cubosome bound to the OM, disrupting it further, successfully killing the cell. Interestingly, loading PMB into the cubosomes as a carrier had little effect; in fact, the cubosome strengthened the OM.

“This is a stunning finding in how we deliver medicine and how the medicine we take impacts us in the future,” said lead researcher Dr Hsin-Hui Shen. 

This approach also means that lower dosages of antibiotics could be used. “Instead of looking for new antibiotics to counteract superbugs, we can use the nanotechnology approach to reduce the dose of antibiotic intake, effectively killing multidrug-resistant organisms.”

It has been 30 years since the discovery of the last new antibiotic, and in coming years, the growing crisis of antibiotics resistance will result in increased mortality from basic infections because they have developed antimicrobial resistance.

Without effective antimicrobials, the WHO warns that the success of modern medicine in treating infections, including during major surgery and cancer chemotherapy, would be at increased risk.

While nanoparticles had been used for a long time before as antimicrobial carriers,  “but the use of nanoparticles in polytherapy treatments with antibiotics in order to overcome antimicrobial resistance has been overlooked,” explained Dr Shen. “The use of nanoparticles-antibiotics combination therapy could reduce the dose intake in the human body and overcome the multidrug resistance.”

Research will now progress to the testing phase.

Source: Monash University

Categories : GastrointestinalTags :

Commonly Used Drugs Have a Significant Impact on Gut Microbiome

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Source: Pixabay CC0

Many commonly used drugs have powerful effects on the human gut microbiome, according to a large cohort study published in the journal Nature. These include drugs used to treat cardiometabolic disorders and antibiotics.

The human microbiome is composed of microbes that reside in and on our bodies, which have tremendous potential to impact our physiology, both in health and in disease. They contribute metabolic functions, protect against pathogens, educate the immune system, and, through these basic functions, affect directly or indirectly most of our physiologic functions.

“We analysed the effects of 28 different drugs and several drug combinations,” explained Professor Peer Bork, Director of Scientific Activities at EMBL Heidelberg, “Many drugs negatively impact the composition and state of the gut bacteria, but others, including aspirin, can have a positive influence on the gut microbiome. We found that drugs can have a more pronounced effect on the host microbiome than disease, diet, and smoking combined.”

While the negative and lasting impact of antibiotics on gut bacteria is already well-known, this study showed that such effects likely accumulate over time. “We found that the gut microbiome of patients taking multiple courses of antibiotics over five years became less healthy. That included signs indicating antimicrobial resistance,” said co-first author of the study Dr Sofia Forslund.

“We wanted to disentangle the effect that diseases have on host microbiomes from the effect of medications, particularly in patients taking more than one drug at the same time,” said co-first author Dr Maria Zimmermann-Kogadeeva. “Being part of the MetaCardis consortium enabled us to use multi-omics data from more than 2000 patients with cardiometabolic diseases,” she added. The cohort’s large size also let the researchers establish that drug dosage also has a significant effect on the level of impact on the microbiome.

“We know that the microbiome can reflect the status of a patient’s health and provide a range of biomarkers to assess the severity of diseases. What is often overlooked, however, is that the medication used to treat a disease also affects the state of the microbiome,” added Dr Rima Chakaroun, one of the lead authors.

The researchers came up with a statistical approach to tease out the effects of drugs and disease separately. “We now have a robust methodological framework that makes it possible to get rid of many of the standard errors,” said Professor Bork. “That allowed us to show that medication can mask the signatures of disease and conceal potential biomarkers or therapeutic targets.”

It is hoped that these results could potentially inform drug repurposing as well as in planning individualised treatment and prevention strategies.

The study combined the insight, knowledge and approaches of experts in six countries. “It was very motivating to work with an interdisciplinary team of clinicians, bioinformaticians, and computational systems biologists to advance our understanding of molecular interactions in cardiometabolic disease,” said Dr Zimmermann-Kogadeeva.

Source: European Molecular Biology Lab

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

A New Clue to Disarming C. Difficile’s Toxic Weaponry

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C difficile. Source: CDC

Therapeutic interventions for Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) could make use of a glucosyltransferase domain (GTD) as an ideal molecular target, potentially yielding new, effective treatments for this deadly disease.

The study, published in Science Advances, provided new insights into TcdB, the toxic molecular weaponry of C. difficile and its hypervirulent strains, creating an opportunity to disarm it.

CDI is the leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and gastroenteritis-associated deaths worldwide, accounting for 500 000 cases and 29 000 deaths in the US every year and is classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the top health threats. The emergence and spread of hypervirulent C. difficile strains is of global concern, resembling as it does the occurrence of new virus variants in current COVID pandemic. TcdB is one of two homologous C. difficile exotoxins, and TcdB alone is capable of causing the full spectrum of CDI diseases.

“We focused on the structure and function of TcdB’s crucial GTD, which is the toxin’s ‘warhead.’ The GTD is delivered by the toxin inside the host cells and causes most of the cytosolic damage to patients,” said corresponding author Rongsheng Jin, PhD, professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the UCI School of Medicine. “We discovered molecular mechanisms by which the GTD specifically recognises and blocks the physiological functions of the human GTPases Rho and R-Ras enzyme families that are crucial signaling molecules.”

The team also showed that the classic form of TcdB and the hypervirulent TcdB recognise their human targets in different ways, leading to distinct structural changes to the host cells caused by bacterial invasion.

“Once the GTD of TcdB is inside the cells, it is shielded by our cells and becomes inaccessible to passive immunotherapy. But our studies suggest that small molecule inhibitors could be developed to disarm the GTD, which will directly eliminate the root cause of disease symptoms and cellular damage,” Prof Jin explained. “This new strategy can potentially be integrated with and complement other CDI treatment regiments.”

Source: UCI School of Medicine

Categories : GastrointestinalTags :

Gut Microbes and Antibiotics Impact Inflammatory Pain

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C difficile. Source: CDC

A study in rats showed that gut microbiomes and antibiotic use could modulate inflammatory pain.

Published in The Journal of Pain, the study examined the impact of antibiotics on the gut microbiome and how antibiotic use can alter inflammatory pain in subjects with or without access to exercise.

According to Glenn Stevenson, Ph.D., professor of psychology within the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, this is the first publication to assess how antibiotic-induced changes to the gut microbiome impact inflammatory pain distal to the gut (in the limbs, for example).

The study determined the effects of vancomycin on inflammatory pain-stimulated and pain-depressed behaviours in rats, which was induced with formalin. Oral vancomycin administered in drinking water attenuated pain-stimulated behaviour, and prevented formalin pain-depressed wheel running. Faecal microbiota transplantation produced a non-significant trend toward reversal of vancomycin’s effect on pain-stimulated behaviour. Vancomycin depleted Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes gut populations while partially sparing Lactobacillus species and Clostridiales. The vancomycin treatment effect was associated with an altered profile in amino acid concentrations in the gut.

The results indicate that manipulation of the gut microbiome may be one method to attenuate inflammatory pain amplitude. Additionally, results indicated that the antibiotic-induced shift in gut amino acid concentrations may be a causal mechanism for this reduction in pain.

The research for this study took four years to complete, Prof Stevenson said, adding that the link between amino acids and pain reduction is “highly novel.”

Source: University of New England

Categories : Antibiotics Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

Azithromycin Protects Pregnancies in Countries with Malaria

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Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash

A review has found that the common antibiotic azithromycin taken during pregnancy reduces low birth weight and premature births in countries where malaria is endemic.

The systematic review of 14 studies in African and Asia, published in The Lancet EClinicalMedicine, found that azithromycin, reduced low birth weight and prematurity but didn’t lower infant deaths, infections and hospital admissions.

Azithromycin, an inexpensive antibiotic widely used to treat chest and ear infections, has been specifically used in the past in pregnancy to treat STIs and, alongside other antimalarial drugs, to prevent adverse consequences of malaria on maternal and foetal outcomes and caesarean wound infections.

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) researcher Dr Maeve Hume-Nixon said it was not clear whether azithromycin would improve perinatal and neonatal outcomes in non-malaria endemic settings, and the potential harm on stillbirth rates needed further investigation.

Dr Hume-Nixon said these findings emphasised the importance of similar MCRI-led research currently being done in Fiji.

“This review found that there was uncertainty about the potential benefits of this intervention on neonatal deaths, admissions and infections, and potential harmful effects on stillbirth despite biological reasons why this intervention may have benefits for these outcomes,” she said.

“Therefore, results from studies like ours underway in Fiji will help to better understand the effect of this intervention on these outcomes.”

The Bulabula MaPei study is a randomised controlled clinical trial testing if azithromycin given to women in labour, prevents maternal and infant infections.

Globally, infections account for 21% of 2.4 million neonatal deaths per year and 52% of all under-five deaths, disproportionately occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

About five million cases of pregnancy-related infections occur in mothers each year as well, resulting in 75 000 maternal deaths.

MCRI Professor Fiona Russell said the large clinical trials in Africa and Asia, along with the MCRI-led trial in Fiji, were likely to inform global policy related to maternal child health and hopefully benefit infants and mothers around the world.

“Administration of azithromycin during labour may be a cheap and simple intervention that could be used to improve neonatal death rates in low and middle-income countries, alongside strengthening of maternal child health services,” she said. “This study, together with other large clinical trials, will add to evidence for the consideration of new international maternal and child health guidelines.”

Source: Murdoch Childrens Research Institute

Categories : Antibiotics COVIDTags :

Bacterial Superinfections in COVID Rarer Than Expected

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Only 21 percent of patients with severe pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2 have a documented bacterial superinfection at the time of intubation, resulting in potential overuse of antibiotics, according to new research.

Superinfection occurs when another, usually different, infection is superimposed on the initial infection. In this case, it is bacterial pneumonia during severe viral pneumonia.

Dr Wunderink and co-authors reported their findings in a study published online in the Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which shows that the usual clinical criteria used to diagnose bacterial pneumonia could not distinguish between those with bacterial superinfection and those with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection only.

According to the authors, there is weak evidence behind current guidelines recommending that patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia receive empirical antibiotics on hospital admission for suspected bacterial superinfection. In other published clinical trials of patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, rates of superinfection pneumonia are unexpectedly low.
“More accurate assessment other than just reviewing clinical parameters is needed to enable clinicians to avoid using antibiotics in the majority of these patients, but appropriately use antibiotics in the 20-25 percent who have a bacterial infection as well,” said Dr Wunderink.

The team conducted an observational study to determine the prevalence and cause of bacterial superinfection at the time of initial intubation and the incidence and cause of subsequent bacterial ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in 179 patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia which required mechanical ventilation.

The researchers analysed 386 bronchoscopic bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples from patients, and actual antibiotic use was compared with guideline-recommended therapy. Bacterial superinfection within 48 hours of intubation was detected in 21 percent of patients; 72 patients (44.4 percent) developed at least one VAP episode; and 15 (20.8 percent) of initial VAPs were caused by difficult-to-treat bacteria.

The authors found that in patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, bacterial superinfection at the time of intubation occurred in less than 25 percent of patients. Guideline-based empirical antibiotic management at the time of intubation would have resulted in antibiotic overuse.

The researchers believe that their findings have multiple implications for antibiotic guidelines: “Rapid diagnostic tests are important for helping identify suspected pneumonia in intubated patients. This can have major clinical implications because the current approach of using clinically defined risk factors for suspected methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or pseudomonas bacteria as the cause of pneumonia still grossly overestimate the true incidence of these pathogens. In addition, the recommendation for empirical antibiotic treatment of worsening viral community-acquired pneumonia (now requiring intubation) may need to be revisited. This is not only true for SARS-CoV-2 but potentially for severe influenza as well.”

“An accurate diagnosis of suspected pneumonia allows clinicians to safely avoid or use narrow spectrum antibiotics for many patients,” Dr Wunderink added.  “While multiple interventions impact mortality in these critically ill patients, the low mortality in our study with more limited antibiotic treatment suggests that our approach was safe.”

Source: American Thoracic Society

Categories : Gender UrogenitalTags :

Treatment for Women with Frequent UTIs Found Wanting

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Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

Women with frequent urinary tract infections report being unhappy at perceived overuse of antibiotics by their doctors and with the limited treatment options available to them, according to a new study.

The study highlights the need to get to the cause of women’s recurrent UTIs, to come up with prevention and to avoid unnecessary antibiotics use, which can eventually lead to resistance.

“Since there’s already a common treatment for UTIs – antibiotics – many doctors don’t see a need to do anything differently,” said senior author Dr Ja-Hong Kim, an associate professor at UCLA Health. “This study really gave us insight into the patient perspective and showed us those with recurrent UTIs are dissatisfied with the current management of the condition. Continued episodes can have a major impact on their quality of life.”

More than half of women will develop a UTI at some point, and roughly 1 in 4 will have repeat infections that can last for years. Many with recurrent infections will be prescribed antibiotics frequently over their lifetime.

The researchers conducted focus groups with 29 women with recurrent UTIs, which were defined as two infections in six months or three in a year. Participants were asked about their knowledge of UTIs and prevention strategies and about treatment impact on their quality of life. Two common themes were revealed: fear and frustration.

Participants were concerned foremost about antibiotic use, with a fear of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and developing resistance. Some also reported antibiotic treatment for symptoms which may have signified other genitourinary conditions, like an overactive bladder.

“Other bladder diseases can cause symptoms similar to recurrent UTIs, such as urination frequency and urgency, pain with urination and blood in the urine,” Dr Kim said. “These could be signs of an overactive bladder, interstitial cystitis, kidney or bladder stones, or something more serious, like bladder cancer. As physicians, we really need to be careful about not just giving patients with these symptoms antibiotics without verifying a UTI through a positive urine culture.”

SInce diagnoses take 48 hours, women can wait days for the correct prescription. This shows the need for better diagnostic tools, Dr Kim said.

Frustration and resentment toward their medical providers for “throwing antibiotics” at them without presenting alternative options for treatment and prevention, and for not understanding their experience with UTIs. In addition, many said their physicians did not properly educate them on the potential negative impacts of antibiotics; the women instead had to rely on information from the internet, magazines and TV.

Beyond improved diagnostics, treatment approaches and guidelines, better patient education is key, Dr Kim said. “We need to do a better job of letting patients know when antibiotics are necessary and when to consider alternative therapy for bladder conditions other than UTIs.”

Dr Kim and her colleagues are currently working to improve UTI diagnosis and management, including developing comprehensive patient-care pathways through which primary care physicians and general gynecologists and urologists will provide initial UTI patient education and management. They are also pursuing studies examining the relationship of the vaginal microbiome to lower urinary tract symptoms and are working to incorporate novel diagnostic methods to allow for point-of-care treatment for UTIs.

Source: UCLA