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Evaluating Whether Interventions on the Use of Antibiotics Work to Decrease Resistance. Chris Ford Regina Joice 1/18/08. Study Designs. Quasi-Experimental Prospective, Randomized Trial Randomized Controlled Intervention Trial Mathematical Models. Quasi-Experimental. Characteristics:
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Evaluating Whether Interventions on the Use of Antibiotics Work to Decrease Resistance Chris Ford Regina Joice 1/18/08
Study Designs • Quasi-Experimental • Prospective, Randomized Trial • Randomized Controlled Intervention Trial • Mathematical Models
Quasi-Experimental • Characteristics: • Lack randomization • Three main types: • Controlled (control and experimental groups) • Descriptive (no control group) • Interrupted Time-Series Design: single group measured pre and post intervention • Example: • Descriptive study: Seppala et al study looking at the effect of changes in consumption of macrolide antibiotics on erythromycin resistance in streptococci. • Experiment setup: 2 time points, pre and post intervention • Data: odds ratio (assumes independent events) • Conclusions: Significant decline in frequency of resistance
Prospective, Randomized Trial • Trial initiated before intervention, monitors patients both pre & post-treatment • Patients randomly assigned to treatment groups. • Helps avoid selection bias through subject randomization • Can be performed at the individual (single group) or group level (multiple groups). • Individual studies are prone to sampling bias and therefore should not be taken as evidence in isolation.
Effect of Short-Course, High-Dose Amoxicillin Therapy on Resistant Pneumococcal Carriage- Schrag, S. et al. JAMA 2001- 286, 49-56 800 patients, randomized into two groups • Short-course, high-dose therapy has been suggested as an anti-resistance intervention • Investigation in a single clinic in the DR • Problems- • Time post treatment? • Applicability to other locals? Short-course High-dose Standard course/dose 77% NC 3% S. 20% NS 73% NC 7% S 21% NS Day 5 64%NC 13% S 23%NS 74% NC 6% S 20% NS Day10 49% NC 27% S 24% NS 46% NC 22% S 32%NS Day 28
Effect of Short-Course, High-Dose Amoxicillin Therapy on Resistant Pneumococcal Carriage- Schrag, S. et al. JAMA 2001- 286, 49-56 800 patients, randomized into two groups Conclusions: • In the context of the current study: • The RR of being a carrier of PNSP post short course vs. standard therapy = 0.78 (given carrier status) 28 days post treatment initation • The RR of being a TMS-NS carrier post short course vs. standard course= 0.77 Short-course High-dose Standard course/dose 77% NC 3% S. 20% NS 73% NC 7% S 21% NS Day 5 64%NC 13% S 23%NS 74% NC 6% S 20% NS Day10 49% NC 27% S 24% NS 46% NC 22% S 32%NS Day 28
Randomized Intervention Trial • Patients or hospitals are assigned to treatments randomly (individual or group randomized trials) • “No single epidemiologic study should be considereddefinitive”- Barry Farr* • Meta-analyses report that result variability was comparable for randomized and non-randomized studies targeted at the same question • Many types of selection bias, not just the selection of participants per group, i.e. non-blinded studies can cause a bias *Farr, B. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. 2006 27(10):1096-1106.
Blind Trials • Single-blind trial: patients blind to intervention • Double-blind trial: researcher and patient blind to intervention • Triple-blind trial: intervention administer (e.g. pharmacist), researcher and patient are blind to intervention *For treatment regimens of different lengths, placebos would be used to make equivalent *For cycling of drugs, no one would know which drug it was (dangerous because cannot predict drug interactions!)
Mathematical Models • Limited reliable, quantitative measures of how well interventions work to decrease resistance. Models offer predictive power in the absence of conclusive data. • Duration of antibiotic therapy can increase the risk of becoming colonized by a resistant strain, because patients are less protected by their own flora while on treatment. • This increases the number of potentially dangerous contacts (the person is susceptible to colonization after contact with a health worker) • Models can predict the effect of interventions on the length of duration of antibiotic treatment and how this effects the rate of resistance. *Lipsitch, et al. Healthcare Epidemiology, CID 2001 33:1739-46.
Issues • Central issue: Overwhelming majority of studies (24/25 according to meta-analysis) assume that events are independent. However, the fact that one person is infected by a resistant strain increases the chance that another becomes infected by a resistant strain. Therefore, these events are NOT independent. • There is a need for studies that do not assume independence of events of resistance. * Cooper et al. BMJ 2004; 329(7465):533
By Chance? • With any communicable disease, an outbreak could cause a large spike in the data. If an intervention is done on the down slope of this epidemic, authors may suggest the intervention worked, and rates are dropping. • By only taking into consideration the possibility of independent events happening by chance, they misjudge the normal fluctuations in the rate of infected subjects • The commonly used Poisson distribution does not account for transmission dynamics
Markov Models • Each event depends on the current state of the system, the past leading up to that has no effect • Hidden Markov Model: underlying unobserved state of the system that gets factored into the changes that occur in the system • Conventional models only account for the transmission of people known to be infected • Asymptomatic carriers also transmit the infection, yet their infections may not be detected • This model accounts for the observed and hidden infections when it makes predictions on the expected resistance rate in the population.
Evaluating Model Fit This paper uses a hidden Markov model to study epidemic data using mechanistic transmission model for the underlying Markov chain • MRSA- Unstructured Hidden Markov (AIC= 132.03) • VRE- Unstructured Hidden Markov (AIC= 210.59) • R-GNR- Poisson (AIC=119.73), Unstructured Hidden Markov (AIC= 122.40)* *R-GNR: patient to patient transmission dynamics are ambiguous, majority of infections may be due to endogenous flora. • The hidden Markov model showed improvements to fits of data from MRSA and VRE. Though for R-GNR, Poisson distribution performed the best.
Hypothesis testing • Do the collected data fit anSIS HMM model of no transmission (=0)? • VRE - reject the null (=0) (p<0.0001) • MRSA- reject the null (=0) (p< 0.001) • R-GNR- fail to reject (p=0.25) • The models reject the hypothesis that transmission does not impact incidence in VRE & MRSA.
Summary • The occurrence of resistance can not be treated as an independent phenomenon. The statistical analysis assuming independence is not appropriate the investigation of the transmission of resistance. • Hidden Markov models allow for the investigation of resistance given that events cannot be treated as independent.