Other Factors Contributing to Antibiotic Treatment Failure-What if more prudent antibacterial use isn't always enough to prevent the spread of resistance?

摘要

The mutations that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics reduce the organisms' overall fitness. This "fitness cost" means that the energy spent on defending against antimicrobial medications makes the bacterium less competitive in other ways.Efforts to slow the emergence of resistance through more prudent antibiotic use are rooted in the assumption that, in the absence of antibiotics, these resistant, less-fit bacteria will be unable to compete with sensitive but highly fit bacterial strains and will die off. Eventually, as this line of thinking goes, the bacterial population will revert to its original antibiotic-sensitive state. But what if this assumption isn't always correct?