20 November 2008 Emergence of extensively drug-resistant and
pandrug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli in Europe International
and local surveillance networks as well as numerous reports in
the biomedical literature provide evidence that the prevalence
of antibiotic resistant Gram-negative bacteria is escalating in
many European countries. Furthermore, isolates characterised as
multidrug-resistant (i.e. resistant to three or more classes of
antimicrobials), extensively drug resistant (i.e. resistant to
all but one or two classes) or pandrug-resistant (i.e. resistant
to all available classes) are increasingly frequently isolated
in hospitalised patients causing infections for which no
adequate therapeutic options exist. Acinetobacter baumannii,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae are
specifically addressed in this review as the most problematic
and often extensively or pandrug-resistant pathogens. According
to the available multicentre surveillance studies, the
proportion of imipenem-resistant A. ba