Antibiotic Treatment of Anaerobic Infections: Uncharted Land in Iran

Antimicrobial resistance among some anaerobic pathogens has increased considerably over the last few decades. Anaerobic bacteria are signifi-cant pathogens found in several infections. How-ever, many laboratories are either incapable or unwilling to culture these bacteria except very specific sites and even fewer laboratories detect antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Therefore, the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of anaerobes remains virtually unclear to laboratorians and cli-nicians, except for those published surveys per-formed by small personnel of research centers scattered worldwide or contained in individual case reports. Resistance trends in anaerobes are therefore biased and sometimes anecdotal . For this reason, the treatment of anaerobic infec-tions, in many hospital settings, not only starts but remains empirical based on published sur-veys. However, both the global and local changes in resistance rates over time should be considered to provide optimal treatment for patients.