Bausch + Lomb has announced last week the results from the ninth consecutive year of the ARMOR (Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring in Ocular MicRoorganisms) surveillance study. Initiated in 2009, ARMOR is the only multicenter survey of antibiotic resistance patterns specific to ocular pathogens in the United States.
The findings were presented on May 2 at the 2018 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In the nine-year trend analysis presentation, ARMOR researchers reported resistance trends in staphylococcal infections from January 2009 through October 2017. A decrease in methicillin resistance (MR) among S. aureus was reported (from 39% to 14%; P<0.001). Further analysis showed decreased resistance among S. aureus to azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, tobramycin, and chloramphenicol. Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS), however, exhibited continued persistence in MR.
"This is the only annual nationwide surveillance of ocular pathogens that eye care professionals have to track actual susceptibility rates for commonly used antibiotics,” said Penny A. Asbell, M.D., lead ARMOR study author, professor of Ophthalmology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and director of the Cornea Service and Refractive Surgery Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital. "Monitoring changes in resistance trends over time is important and can directly affect how we, as eye care professionals, select an appropriate topical antibacterial treatment for patients.”
See the full press release from Bausch + Lomb.
Image: MRSA bacteria is depicted bound to a neutrophil, a type of infection-fighting white blood cell. Image courtesy of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health.