• Alberto Corona, Guido Bertolini, Anna Maria Ricotta, A Peter R Wilson, Mervyn Singer, and A J Peter Wilson.
• GiViTI Coordinating Centre, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Centro di Ricerche Cliniche per le Malattie Rare Aldo e Cele Daccò, Ranica (BG), Italy.
• J. Antimicrob. Chemother. 2003 Nov 1;52(5):849-52.

ObjectivesNo definitive evidence is available to inform 'best' antibiotic practice for treating bacteraemia in the critically ill patient, either in terms of duration of therapy, or the use of mono- versus combination therapy. We therefore undertook a large-scale international survey to assess the variability of current practice.MethodsA questionnaire was sent to membership lists of national and international intensive care societies.ResultsResponses from 254 intensive care units in 34 countries revealed a wide variation in antibiotic strategy for all types of bacteraemia, ranging from short course (or=10 days) use of broad-spectrum combinations. Two factors were significantly associated with antibiotic prescribing practice, namely the country of origin (in those with >or=10 responders) and the level of microbiologist and/or infectious diseases specialist input. The greater the specialist input, the shorter the duration of therapy (P < 0.0001).ConclusionsThe wide variability in antibiotic prescribing patterns suggests an urgent need to produce high-quality evidence to identify optimal antibiotic prescribing policies for bacteraemia in the critically ill patient.

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