Our recommendations should be considered general
guidelines that do not supersede information
obtained through culture and susceptibility testing
from the individual patient. Most of them are disease-
specific recommendations that can be used in
situations where the specific agent or its susceptibility
pattern is unknown, when samples are not submitted
to laboratory diagnosis or while culture results are
pending. Only few pathogen-specific recommendations
are provided to guide antimicrobial selection
when the causative agent has been identified and in
vitro susceptibility data are available, as this situation
is rather infrequent in clinical practice. In some situations,
multiple options are presented in each category
(first, second and last choice). This is because
recommended drugs within the same category are
presumed to be similarly appropriate and other factors
such as cost, route of administration and patient
factors (e.g. age, concurrent disease) should be considered
for selecting the best antimicrobial option.
Furthermore, not all of the suggested antimicrobials
are available in all jurisdictions and the use of certain
compounds (i.e. chloramphenicol) is banned in
some countries.