Antibiotic resistance of pathogens causing community-acquired pneumonia

摘要

Community-acquired pneumonia remains an important cause of disease and death both inthe developed and the developing worlds and therefore continues to have major medicalimpact. The mortality remains high despite the ready availability of potent antimicrobial agents to which the organisms are susceptible. However, management of these infectionsis potentially complicated by the emerging resistance of many of the common pathogensto the different classes of antibiotics that are usually prescribed. Furthermore, it is alsobeing recognized that antibiotic resistance and/or treatment failures may occur not onlythrough traditional microbial antibiotic resistance mechanisms, but also through lesswell-defined mechanisms, particularly those developed by the microbes in relation totheir quorum sensing/biofilm machinery. Much recent research in this field has beenfocused on evaluating the clinical impact of antibiotic resistance on optimal antibiotictreatment and antimicrobial choices, as well as alternative strategies to deal withantibiotic resistance and/or treatment failures.