Objective: We studied whether the change in antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) guidelines from CLSI to EUCAST influenced cumulative antibiograms in a tertiary care hospital in Switzerland.
Methods: Antibiotic susceptibilities of non-duplicate isolates collected within a one-year period before (period A) and after (period B) changing AST interpretation from CLSI 2009 to EUCAST 1.3 (2011) guidelines were analysed. In addition, period B isolates were reinterpreted according to the CLSI 2009, CLSI 2013 and EUCAST 3.1 (2013) guidelines.
Results: The majority of species/drug combinations showed no differences in susceptibility rates comparing periods A and B. However, in some gram-negative bacilli, decreased susceptibility rates were observed when comparing CLSI 2009 with EUCAST 1.3 within period B: Escherichia coli / cefepime, 95.8% (CLSI 2009) vs. 93.1% (EUCAST 1.3), P=0.005; Enterobacter cloacae / cefepime, 97.0 (CLSI 2009) vs. 90.5% (EUCAST 1.3), P=0.012; Pseudomonas aeruginosa / meropenem, 88.1% (CLSI 2009) vs. 78.3% (EUCAST 1.3), P=0.002. These differences were still evident when comparing susceptibility rates according to the CLSI 2013 guideline with EUCAST 3.1 guideline. For P. aeruginosa and imipenem, a trend towards a lower antibiotic susceptibility rate in ICUs compared to general wards turned into a significant difference after the change to EUCAST: 87.9% vs. 79.8%, P=0.08 (CLSI 2009) and 86.3% vs. 76.8%, P=0.048 (EUCAST 1.3).
Conclusions: The change of AST guidelines from CLSI to EUCAST led to a clinically relevant decrease of susceptibility rates in cumulative antibiograms for defined species/drug combinations, particularly in those with considerable differences in clinical susceptibility breakpoints between the two guidelines.