Development of a national web-based antibiogram tool.

Abstract

A 30-year-old man presents to your pharmacy with a prescription for ciprofloxacin 500 mg oral twice daily for 7 days that was given to him by his physician. The patient tells you that he has been experiencing dysuria and increased urinary fre-quency for the past 2 days. After your assessment, you agree that this patient requires antibiotics, but you are uncertain whether ciprofloxacin is the most appropriate antimicrobial. You check your references 1-3 and realize that it is advised to assess local susceptibility rates of Escherichia coli to fluoroquinolones when considering them for a urinary tract infection (UTI). You learn that ciprofloxacin is recommended as empiric therapy only if the local resistance rates are lower than 10%. 1-3 How would you determine your local resistance rates to E. coli ?