Antifungal susceptibility of 262 bloodstream yeast isolates from a mixed cancer and non-cancer patient population: is there a correlation between in-vitro resistance to fluconazole and the outcome of fungemia?

The aim of this study was to test the antifungal susceptibility of 262 bloodstream yeast isolates (164 Candida albicans strain, 88 non-albicans Candida spp. and 10 non-Candida yeasts) recovered from 169 surgical, neonatal, critically ill intensive care unit patients (ICU), and cancer patients (mixed patient population) to amphotericin B (AmB), fluconazole (FLU), 5-flucytosine (5-FC), itraconazole (ITRA), ketoconazole (KETO), miconazole (MICO), and nystatin (NYS), in order to correlate in-vitro resistance to fluconazole with the outcome of fungemia. The agar disk diffusion test was used to assess the susceptibility of the 262 bloodstream yeasts isolates.

National and local antibiotic policies in Central and Eastern Europe.

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.