16: Antibiotic Resistance and Other Antimicrobials
In nature, some microbes produce substances that inhibit or kill other microbes that might otherwise compete for the same resources. Humans have successfully exploited these abilities, using microbes to mass-produce substances that can be used as antimicrobial drugs. Since their discovery, antimicrobial drugs have saved countless lives, and they remain an essential tool for treating and controlling infectious disease. But their widespread and often unnecessary use has had an unintended side effect: the rise of multidrug-resistant microbial strains. In this chapter, we will discuss how antimicrobial drugs work, why microbes develop resistance, and what health professionals can do to encourage responsible use of antimicrobials.
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- 16.1: The Emergence of Drug Resistance
- The Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion test helps determine the susceptibility of a microorganism to various antimicrobial drugs. However, the zones of inhibition measured must be correlated to known standards to determine susceptibility and resistance, and do not provide information on bactericidal versus bacteriostatic activity, or allow for direct comparison of drug potencies. Antibiograms are useful for monitoring local trends in antimicrobial resistance/susceptibility.
Footnotes
- 1 “Treatment of War Wounds: A Historical Review.” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 467 no. 8 (2009):2168–2191.
Thumbnail: Staphylococcus aureus - Antibiotics Test plate. (Public Domain; CDC / Provider: Don Stalons).