Antimicrobial resistance: a problem across the cancer care continuum

The treatment of cancer patients relies on managing infectious complications. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was once confined to hospital settings, but the emergence of community-associated Staphylococcus aureus and Enterobacterales in the early 21st century expanded the AMR crisis into community-onset infections. A study using the Becton Dickinson Insights Research Database analyzed bacterial isolates collected between April 1, 2018 and Dec 31, 2022. The researchers compared antimicrobial susceptibility patterns in 53,006 (3.2%) of 1,655,594 pathogens identified from outpatients with cancer versus 1,602,588 (96.8%) isolates from outpatients without cancer, providing the broadest view to date of the breadth of AMR in outpatients with cancer.