A PROSPECTIVE OBSERVATIONAL STUDY ON EMPIRICAL ANTIMICROBIAL USE IN MEDICAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

Empirical treatment is given without knowledge of the cause or nature of the disease and based on experience rather than logic. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics create a challenge for clinicians when treating a patient with infection and thereby empirical antimicrobial therapy is important as it decreases the emerging resistance and reduce the economic burden to society. This study was done among 75 patients for 2 months to analyse the empirical antimicrobials used in the medical intensive care unit. It was found from the study that lungs was the major site of infection and E.coli was the most grown microorganism in the culture. In the treatment with empirical antimicrobials, azithromycin was the most common antibiotic used among the patients and there was no change in the treatment pattern after obtaining the culture results. Key words: Empirical Antimicrobials, Medical Intensive Care Unit, Escalation, De-escalation, Culture