In: Nursing
Antibiogram
An antibiogram is an overall profile of
antimicrobial susceptibility testing results of a specific
microorganism to a battery of antimicrobial drugs. This profile is
generated by the laboratory using aggregate data from a hospital or
healthcare system; data are summarized periodically and presented
showing percentages of organisms tested that are susceptible to a
particular antimicrobial drug.
In simple terms, an antibiogram is a report that shows how susceptible strains of pathogens are to a variety of antibiotics.not every antibiotic works the same way. Some pathogens require one antibiotic, while others require a completely different antibiotic. However, some pathogens that used to be susceptible to an antibiotic become gradually resistant to it, limiting the numbers of drugs that can be used to destroy it.
It helps the doctor to choose the correct antibiotics. sample from the patient is sent to the lab, where a technician tests it against a panel of antibiotics at various levels of concentration (to see how much of the drug is needed to kill the pathogen). Finally, the samples are observed for visible growth of the pathogen. They are looking for the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), the lowest concentration of the drug that shows no pathogen growth. Then finding out the susceptible host and giving final rrport to the healthcate team to choose correct antibiotics for the patient. It is depends on doctor decision to select drug upon considering patient age, illness, etc.
This big-picture antibiogram helps in individual cases by bridging the gap between when the infection is sampled and when the results come back from the lab. Often, a patient will be sick enough that waiting for those results would put them at tremendous risk. The doctor needs to choose the best empiric antibiotic therapy the best treatment prior to receiving the individual lab report. A doctor can refer to the hospital antibiogram to see the trends in how susceptible that strain is to the antibiotic choices.