Another look at differences in the susceptibility of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae to cephalothin and cefazolin.

The significance of in vitro susceptibility tests on Enterobacteriaceae to cephalothin and cefazolin has not been exactly defined in the guidelines of the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. In the hope of clarifying this confusion, we provide additional information from an ancillary study of the Taiwan Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance 1998 (TSAR I). There were 505 Escherichia coli and 227 Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates susceptible to cephalothin, reported by 42 participating hospitals. The susceptibility of these isolates were re-tested at the Microbial Infections Reference Laboratory using cefazolin, with the result that 72% of the 252 cephalothin-resistant E. coli isolates and 24% of the 41 cephalothin-resistant K. pneumoniae isolates were found to be susceptible to cefazolin. We further surveyed the availability of cephalothin and cefazolin in Pharmacy Departments; all of the TSAR I hospitals had cefazolin available in their pharmacies. The resistance rate of E. coli was significantly lower for 12 hospitals that had cefazolin in both pharmacy and laboratory compared with 11 hospitals that had cefazolin available in pharmacy but cephalothin in laboratory. In addition, for all the hospitals that had cephalothin available for clinical use, the resistance rate was twice as low in two hospitals reporting cefazolin susceptibility as in the seven hospitals reporting cephalothin susceptibility. Our findings suggest that inappropriate selection of cephalothin and cefazolin for susceptibility testing contribute to inaccurate indications of in vivo activity for first generation cephalosporins in the treatment of E. coli infections.