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Background: The national strategy for tackling antimicrobial resistance highlights the need for antimicrobial stewardship in veterinary practice and for surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility in veterinary pathogens. Diagnostic laboratories have an important role in facilitating both of these processes, but it is unclear whether data from veterinary diagnostic laboratories are similar enough to allow for compilation and if there is consistent promotion of appropriate antimicrobial use embedded in the approaches of different laboratories to susceptibility testing., Methods: A cross-sectional study of antimicrobial susceptibility testing and reporting procedures by Australian veterinary diagnostic laboratories was conducted in 2017 using an online questionnaire. All 18 veterinary diagnostic laboratories in Australia completed the questionnaire., Results: Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion was the method predominantly used for antimicrobial susceptibility testing and was used to evaluate 86% of all isolates, although two different protocols were used across the 18 laboratories (CLSI 15/18, CDS 3/18). Minimum inhibitory concentrations were never reported by 61% of laboratories. Common isolates were consistently reported on across all species, except for gram-negative isolates in pigs, for which there was some variation in the approach to reporting. There was considerable diversity in the panels of antimicrobials used for susceptibility testing on common isolates and no consistency was apparent between laboratories for any bacterial species., Conclusion: We recommend that nationally agreed and consistent antimicrobial panels for routine susceptibility testing should be developed and a uniform set of guidelines should be adopted by veterinary diagnostic laboratories in Australia., (© 2018 Australian Veterinary Association.)

Background: Appropriate dosing with antimicrobial agents is critical for effective treatment and to prevent the development of antimicrobial resistance. Methods: A review was undertaken of equine journal articles (Equine Veterinary Journal, Equine Veterinary Education, Australian Veterinary Journal, Australian Equine Veterinarian, Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine and Journal of Equine Veterinary Science) between January 2015 and August 2018. Those with dosing regimens for procaine penicillin G, gentamicin or trimethoprim‐sulfonamide in adult horses were examined and evaluated. Pharmacokinetics and ‐dynamics of these drugs were also reviewed. Results & Conclusion: The most frequently reported doses for penicillin, gentamicin and trimethoprim‐sulfonamide were 20–25,000 IU/kg, 6.6 mg/kg and 30 mg/kg, respectively. Veterinarians treating equine patients in Australia should be aware of the current recommended doses and inter‐dosing intervals to ensure efficacy in therapy and to preserve the usefulness of these antimicrobials for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Currently there is an incomplete understanding of antimicrobial usage patterns in veterinary clinics in Australia, but such knowledge is critical for the successful implementation and monitoring of antimicrobial stewardship programs. Methods: VetCompass Australia collects medical records from 181 clinics in Australia (as of May 2018). These records contain detailed information from individual consultations regarding the medications dispensed. One unique aspect of VetCompass Australia is its focus on applying natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning techniques to analyse the records, similar to efforts conducted in other medical studies. Results: The free text fields of 4,394,493 veterinary consultation records of dogs and cats between 2013 and 2018 were collated by VetCompass Australia and NLP techniques applied to enable the querying of the antimicrobial usage within these consultations. Conclusion: The NLP algorithms developed matched antimicrobial in clinical records with 96.7% accuracy and an F1 Score of 0.85, as evaluated relative to expert annotations. This dataset can be readily queried to demonstrate the antimicrobial usage patterns of companion animal practices throughout Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]