Impact of improving infection control and antibiotic stewardship practices on nosocomial infections and antimicrobial resistance in an oncology centre from India

Abstract

BackgroundImproving basic infection control (IC) practices, diagnostics and anti-microbial stewardship (AMS) are key tools to handle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Materials and methodsThis is a retrospective study done over 6 years (2016–2021) in an oncology centre in North India with many on-going interventions to improve IC practices, diagnostics and AMS. This study looked into AMR patterns from clinical isolates, rates of hospital acquired infections (HAI) and clinical outcomes. ResultsOver all, 98,915 samples were sent for culture from 158,191 admitted patients. Most commonly isolated organism was E. coli (n ​= ​6951; 30.1%) followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (n ​= ​5801; 25.1%) and Pseudomonas aeroginosa (n ​= ​3041; 13.1%). VRE (Vancomycin resistant Enterococcus) rates fell down from 43.5% in Jan–June 2016 to 12.2% in July–Dec 2021, same was seen in CR (carbapenem resistant) Pseudomonas (23.0%–20.6%, CR Acinetobacter (66.6%–17.02%) and CR E. coli (21.6%–19.4%) over the same study period. Rate of isolation of Candida spp. from non-sterile sites also showed reduction (1.68 per 100 patients to 0.65 per 100 patients). Incidence of health care associated infections also fell from 2.3 to 1.19 per 1000 line days for CLABSI, 2.28 to 1.88 per 1000 catheter days for CAUTI. There was no change in overall mortality rates across the study period. ConclusionThis study emphasizes the point that improving compliance to standard IC recommendations and improving diagnostics can help in reducing the burden of antimicrobial resistance.