Development and validation of potential structure indicators for evaluating antimicrobial stewardship programmes in European hospitals

This study describes the development of structure indicators for hospital antimicrobial stewardship programmes and pilot validation across European hospitals. A multi-disciplinary panel from four European countries developed structure indicators in three steps: identification and listing of indicators, remote ranking of indicators using multi-criteria scoring, selection of indicators in a face-to-face consensus meeting. Additionally, the top-ten indicators were identified as a minimal set of key indicators. A survey was sent to the directors of antimicrobial stewardship programmes in European hospitals. The yes/no answers for the indicators were transformed into numbers in order to calculate the total scores. A list of 58 indicators was selected and categorised into the following topics: antimicrobial stewardship services (12 items), tools (16 items), human resources and mandate (6 items), health care personnel development (4 items), basic diagnostic capabilities (6 items), microbiological rapid tests (2 items), evaluation of microbiological drug resistance data (3 items), antibiotic consumption control (5 items) and drug use monitoring (4 items). The indicator scores, reported by 11 pilot hospitals from five European countries, ranged from 32 to 50 (maximum score = 58) and from 5 to 10 points (maximum score = 10) for, respectively, the complete and the top-ten list. An international panel selected 58 potential structure indicators, among which was a minimal set of ten key structure indicators, that could be useful for assessment of the comprehensiveness and resource-intensity of antimicrobial stewardship programmes. There was significant heterogeneity among participating centres with regard to their score for structural components of effective antimicrobial stewardship

Prospective multicentre feasibility study of a quality of care indicator for intravenous to oral switch therapy with highly bioavailable antibiotics

Enhanced oral (po) bioavailability of antimicrobial drugs allows conversion to po therapy once a patient meets defined clinical criteria. This can reduce length of hospital stay, healthcare costs and risk of complications related to intravenous (iv) access. We developed a quality indicator for assessing the appropriate iv-to-po switch of bioavailable antibiotics and evaluated its feasibility and clinical relevance across acute healthcare systems. The study was designed as a multicentre, multinational observational audit. The indicator was the proportion of inappropriate iv treatments at any point in time in adult patients treated with fluoroquinolones, clindamycin, linezolid or metronidazole. Treatments were prospectively evaluated by a trained physician or clinical pharmacist using predefined clinical criteria. The feasibility of the indicator was evaluated by measuring data availability, data collection workload and sensitivity to improvement Data were collected over a 3 month period in five university hospitals in Austria, Belgium and Germany and iv treatment was assessed in 211 patients. The indicator was measurable in 99.1 of cases. By intention-to-treat analysis, 37.0 (95 CI 30.543.9) of treatments were inappropriate, ranging from 17.5 to 53.8 across hospitals. The median time needed for case assessment and documentation was 29 min. This quality indicator was found to be generally feasible in hospitals across three European countries, and informative about the local need for clinical quality improvement

Clinical outcome in patients with carcinoma of the esophagogastric junction treated with neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy or perioperative chemotherapy: a two-enter retrospective analysis

BACKGROUND: Adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) is a rare but rising tumor entity in the Western world. Treatment is complex, as multimodality is key to optimal results. However, trials solely including AEG are rare, and the question if neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy (NRCT) or neoadjuvant/perioperative chemotherapy (NACT) is superior remains unanswered. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with AEG I–III treated between October 2010 and August 2019 at the Ordensklinikum Linz or the Kepler University Hospital were identified either from a monitored tumor registry or by chart review. Time-to-event data were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier product limit estimation. The Kruskal-Wallis test and Fisher’s exact test were used for comparing continuous and categorical data, respectively. RESULTS: A total of 85 patients (median age 63 years; median Charlson Comorbidity Index 3; 98.8% ECOG PS 0–1) were analyzed. Of these, 52 patients received NRCT (81% CROSS protocol) and 33 NACT (65% EOX and 35% FLOT protocol). There was a significantly higher pathological complete response rate in the NRCT group (30 vs. 12%; p = 0.010); distant relapse rates were higher in the NRCT group and local relapse rates were higher in the NACT group (both not significant). These differences, however, did not translate into a different disease-free survival (20 months; 95% CI: 13–34) or overall survival (44 months; 95% CI: 33–NA). Patients >65 years old had the same advantage from treatment as patients <65 years of age. CONCLUSIONS: Although treatment of AEG is complex, the progress documented over the last centuries can be reproduced in our real-life setting. Data regarding the superiority of either type of neoadjuvant/perioperative treatment are sparse. We assume no difference between EOX-based NACT and NRCT