Researchers find that age and sex are associated with a patient’s likelihood of antibiotic resistance. Credit: CDC
Key points:
- Researchers discovered that a person’s age, sex and location impact their resistance to antibiotics.
- Some occurrence of some bacteria, like MRSA, is more common at an older age, while E.coli is more common at a younger age.
- For women, the incidence of infections due to E. coli peaked between ages 15 and 40. Men had a higher risk of antibiotic resistance than women.
A person’s age, sex and location are correlated with the chance that they have a bloodstream infection that is resistant to antibiotics, according to a new study out of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
In the study, published in PLOS Medicine, researchers analyzed data collected as part of routine surveillance between 2015 and 2019 on bloodstream infections in 944,520 individuals across 29 European countries. The team looked at which bacterial species were isolated and sent to the surveillance service, and which antibiotics were used to treat the infections.
Distinct patterns in resistance prevalence by age were observed throughout the European sample, but varied across bacterial species. For most bacteria, peaks in resistance were seen at the youngest and oldest ages. For example, the occurrence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) increased with age, while the occurrence of aminopenicillin resistance in E.coli decreased with age.
Some antibiotic-resistant profiles peaked in middle-age. The study results showed Pseudomonas aeruginosa was most likely to be resistant to several antibiotics around 30 years of age and, for women, the incidence of bloodstream infections due to E. coli peaked between ages 15 and 40. Meanwhile, men had a higher risk of antibiotic resistance than women.
“These findings highlight important gaps in our knowledge of the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance that are difficult to explain through known patterns of antibiotic exposure and healthcare contact,” the authors say. “Our findings suggest that there may be value in considering interventions to reduce antimicrobial resistance burden that take into account important variations in antimicrobial resistance prevalence with age and sex.”