Professor Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Disclosure(s):
Scott Weese, DVM DVSc DACVIM (LAIM): No relevant disclosure to display
Presentation Description / Summary: "Shorter is better" is an increasingly common refrain in human medicine when it comes to antimicrobial use. In veterinary medicine, overtreatment is common, but at the same time "use enough" is still an important consideration. High quality duration of treatment data are lacking for most conditions in veterinary medicine. Yet, principles of disease, concepts of antimicrobial treatment, available veterinary data and extrapolation from human medicine can provide guidance to help refine treatment durations, to optimize patient outcomes while limiting negative aspects of unnecessarily long durations (including cost, stress of administration, adverse drug events, drug interactions and antimicrobial resistance). There is also a need to critically assess and challenge well ingrained dogmas, such as 'the minimum antibiotic duration', to facilitate appropriate treatment regimens.
Learner Outcomes: 1) To understand principles of antimicrobial therapy that influence duration of treatment 2) To identify gaps in data and opportunities (and limitations) from extrapolating data from humans and other species 3) To consider where shorter treatment durations are appropriate and where they are not, to optimize management of patients
Learning Objectives:
To identify barriers and issues related to optimizing antimicrobial durations
To identify clinical outcome measures and how they relate to antimicrobial duration
To understand potential concerns with inadequately short or excessively long treatment durations
