Economic burden of antibiotic resistance: how much do we really know?

The Question

What have studies that estimate the economic burden of antibiotic resistance contributed to our understanding of the issue? What are their limitations? What conclusions can be reached by reviewing them?

What we found

The problem of estimating the economic burden of antibiotic resistance is a challenging one. One of the first hurdles is to properly quantify the disease burden attributable to antibiotic resistance; recent studies that attempt to do this have methodological limitations and would benefit from using multistate models with large patient populations in multicentre settings or by using large administrative datasets. The estimates we currently have also don’t take the entire scope of the problem into account, including broader consequences of losing the critical efficacy of medical antibiotics.

Why it matters

The declining effectiveness of antibiotics imposes potentially large health and economic burdens on societies. Quantifying the economic outcomes of antibiotic resistance effectively can help policy-makers and healthcare professionals to set priorities, but determining the actual effect of antibiotic resistance on clinical outcomes is a necessary first step.