Paper I — 2024 December (Supplementary) (2019 Scheme) — Q8
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Paper I
2024 December (Supplementary) (2019 Scheme) · 100 marks · 180 min
Question
What is an antibiogram. How is it useful in a hospital. (2+4)
Q86 marksShort Essays
Answer
Antibiogram: a summary, typically presented as a table/chart, of the cumulative antimicrobial susceptibility data of clinical bacterial isolates from a specific healthcare facility (or unit/ward) over a defined period (typically compiled annually), showing the percentage of isolates of each common organism that are susceptible to each tested antibiotic.
Usefulness in a hospital:
Guides empirical antibiotic therapy — allows clinicians to select the most likely effective empirical antibiotic for a given clinical syndrome/suspected organism, before culture and susceptibility results for the individual patient are available, based on local resistance patterns rather than generic/national data.
Tracks local/institutional resistance trends over time — comparing successive annual antibiograms reveals emerging resistance patterns specific to that facility, prompting timely intervention.
Informs infection-control and antimicrobial stewardship policy — guides decisions on antibiotic formulary restrictions, empirical treatment guidelines, and targeted surveillance for specific resistant organisms (e.g., MRSA, ESBL-producers, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae).
Supports outbreak detection — a sudden shift in the antibiogram (e.g., rising resistance to a previously effective agent) can be an early signal of an outbreak involving a resistant clone, prompting investigation.
Facility/unit-specific relevance — since resistance patterns vary significantly between hospitals (and even between units within the same hospital, e.g., ICU versus general ward), a local antibiogram is far more clinically relevant for guiding therapy than generic national/international resistance data.
Benchmarking and quality improvement — allows comparison of a facility’s resistance rates against regional/national benchmarks, supporting quality-improvement initiatives.
