• Giulia De Angelis, Giovanni Restuccia, Silvia Venturiello, Roberto Cauda, Surbhi Malhotra-Kumar, Herman Goossens, Jacques Schrenzel, and Evelina Tacconelli.
• Department of Infectious Diseases, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo F, Vito, 1 00168 Rome, Italy. etacconelli@rm.unicatt.it.
• Bmc Infect Dis. 2012 Jan 1; 12: 74.

BackgroundThe risk of acquisition of antibiotic resistant-bacteria during or shortly after antibiotic therapy is still unclear and it is often confounded by scarce data on antibiotic usage.Primary objective of the study is to compare rates of acquisition of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and extended spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae in hospitalised patients, after starting antibiotic therapy.Methods/DesignThe study, running in three European hospitals, is a multicenter, prospective, longitudinal, observational cohort study funded from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] within the project 'Impact of Specific Antibiotic Therapies on the prevalence of hUman host ResistaNt bacteria' (acronym SATURN). Nasal and rectal screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and extended spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae will be obtained at hospital admission, discharge, at antibiotic start (t0, within one hour) and at the following intervals: day 3 (t1), 7 (t2), 15 (t3), and 30 (t4). Two nested case-control studies will be performed. The objective of the first study will be to define individual level of risk related to specific antibiotics. Patients acquiring methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and extended spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (cases) will be compared with patients not acquiring antibiotic-resistant strains after starting antibiotic therapy (controls; ratio 1:4). To define the impact of antibiotics on new acquisition of target antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a second nested case-control study will be done (ratio 1:4). Control group will be selected among patients not receiving antibiotics, admitted in the same ward on the day of the corresponding case, with negative cultures at admission. Epidemiological, clinical and microbiological data will be prospective collected.DiscussionThe rationale of this study is to better understand the impact of antibiotic use on acquisition, selection and transmission of antimicrobial resistant-bacteria in European hospitals.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT01208519.

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