Story by: by Karen Blum,
Pharmacy Practice News
Hospital pharmacists face several challenges in helping manage antibiotic-resistant, gram-negative superbugs that produce carbapenemases. One of the most worrisome is carba- penemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC).
A report in the March issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (2013;34:259-268) found that the proportion ofK. pneumoniae cases resistant to carbapenems increased from 0.1% in 2001 to 4.5% in 2010. “That is huge,” said Robert Rapp, PharmD, a professor of pharmacy and surgery emeritus at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, who is one of many pharmacists concerned about KPC.
Those concerns were compounded by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s report on the rising prevalence of carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE). According to the report, in the last decade, hospitals have seen a fourfold increase in CRE, with most of the increase attributable to Klebsiella species (MMWR 2013;62:1-6).
Read the full story at Pharmacy Practice News