The most fragile patients in the crosshairs of resistant super bacteria. “There is an emergency in the emergency also in Italy – warns Giovanni Di Perri, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Department of Medical Sciences of the University of Turin and director of the University Division of Infectious Diseases at the Amedeo di Savoia Hospital in Turin – Despite correct prevention in environments such as day hospitals and infusion clinics, there is a growing trend in our country of cancer patients suffering from serious hospital infections, who have a mortality with a triple risk in these already fragile patients. on the mortality of antibiotic resistance in oncology is disruptive, also because cancer patients are more affected by severe lung and urinary tract infections, mainly due to pathogens such as Klebsiella Pneumoniae, Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas “.
The problem of antibiotic resistance, in the spotlight due to the alarms launched periodically by the World Health Organization, is amplified if we look at the world of oncology. Following chemotherapy and disease-related interventions, cancer patients are among the most affected by drug-resistant hospital infections. One in 5 is hospitalized due to serious infections, with a mortality three times higher than the rest of the population, equal to one third of the 11 thousand deaths recorded every year in Italy from antibiotic resistance (therefore about 3 thousand deaths). According to experts, however, a priority, responsible and timely use of the new antibiotics already available today can ensure the best possible treatment and avoid up to a thousand deaths every year in the Peninsula, one third. An estimate that is obtained by applying to our country what emerges from an analysis by the US Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The super bacteria alarm in fragile patients is raised by the infectious disease specialists gathered in Turin today and tomorrow for the international congress ‘(R) evolutions in infectious diseases immunity and pharmacology’, co-organized by the Menarini International Foundation, University of Turin, Amedeo Hospital di Savoia and Cardinal Massaia Hospital in Asti, in view of the European Antibiotic Day of 18 November. Starting point: the results of a review of 223 studies, conducted by the University of Texas Southwestern and published in the American Cancer Journal for Clinicans of the American Cancer Society, which takes stock of antibiotic resistance in patients oncological and strategies to counter it.
“In recent decades, advances in cancer treatment have made great strides and saved more and more lives, making cancer patients more susceptible to the risk of antibiotic-resistant infections, with a paradoxical effect,” says Di Perri. The right antibiotic given even at the right time, experts point out, can make a difference. “If we do not adopt a competent, priority and timely use of the new antibiotics already available today, we risk going back decades in cancer mortality rates and not because it is the oncological disease that kills the patients but the antibiotic-resistant infections”, he warns. ‘infectious disease specialist.
“If the antibiotic treatment is delayed, the infection progresses, making healing long and difficult, with repercussions on the cadence of chemotherapy cycles, up to a dangerous paralysis of oncological treatments that leads to disease progression, long hospitalizations, low quality of life of the patient and family members, up to the increase in the risk of mortality “, continues the expert.
“Today some new antibiotics effective against multidrug-resistant germs are already available, but the prompt access of patients to these new treatments is not always easy – notes Di Perri – The current policy of purely limited use of recently approved antibiotics is of low perspective, has not proved effective and threatens to compromise their contribution and the development of new options. Clearly the destiny of each antibiotic is to select the germs resistant to it over time, but if used well it can have a prolonged life that allows us to in the meantime to synthesize new molecules that will replace the old ones “. In this way, disastrous consequences for our health system and public health can also be avoided.
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