United States geographic bacteria susceptibility patterns. 1997 ASCP Susceptibility Testing Group.

Antimicrobial drug resistance in bacterial pathogens continues, with 1997 seeing reports of Staphylococcus aureus no longer fully susceptible to vancomycin occurring in the United States. To better deal with this rapidly developing problem, we present the third year of United States national data that highlights the geographic nature of increasing resistance to antimicrobial agents. In 1997, we observed increasing numbers of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, more methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and an apparent spreading of penicillin resistance in pneumococci. The majority of reporting sites now indicates that over 20% of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are fully resistant to ciprofloxacin, the only oral agent available for treating this pathogen. With increasing resistance coming at a time of decreasing available resources, it is more clear than ever before that the future of infectious diseases and clinical microbiology remains filled with challenge.