Health and Disability

Researchers have reported the strongest evidence yet that rising antibiotic resistance could have disastrous consequences for patients undergoing surgery or cancerchemotherapy.

A 30% reduction in the efficacy of antibiotic prophylaxis (preventive use of antibiotics) could result in 120,000 additional infections and 6,300 infection-related deaths every year in the US alone.

Antibiotics are key to modern health care. Without them, life-giving invasive medical procedures become extremely risky.

Prophylactic antibiotics are used routinely in surgery, organ transplantation and cancer chemotherapy to prevent infections.

Increasing antibiotic resistance threatens the safety of these procedures and could result in increased rates of morbidity, amputation or death.

In the US, an estimated 157,500 surgical site infections resulted during inpatient surgery in 2011. A 3% mortality rate is associated with surgical site infections, and patients who develop such infections have between two and 11 times higher mortality rate than those who do not.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that around 650,000 patients a year receive chemotherapy for cancer in the US; approximately 10% acquire an infection that requires a hospital visit.