P03 - Prevalence of Antibiotic Use for Cats and Dogs in U.S. Veterinary Teaching Hospitals, August 2020

Background– Point prevalence surveys of antibiotic use (AU) in small animal medicine can identify opportunities to improve antibiotic prescribing practices and track progress.

Objectives– To estimate prevalence of AU for dogs and cats treated at United States veterinary teaching hospitals and to describe the most common antibiotics prescribed, indications for use, and evidence of infections associated with each prescription.

Animals– Cross-sectional survey of medical records from cats and dogs evaluated by a veterinarian on primary and urgent care, emergency and critical care, internal medicine, and surgery services on a single day at 14 veterinary teaching hospitals.

Methods– Medical record data, including signalment, clinical service, inpatient or outpatient status, clinical problems, diagnostic tests, and name, dose, route of antibiotics prescribed on the study date or the day prior, were entered into a secure online database.

Results– Overall AU prevalence was 36.5% (95% CI 33.3-39.6) with 57.7% (235/407) of hospitalized and 18.3% (87/476) of outpatient cats and dogs prescribed an antibiotic during the study. For both dogs and cats cefazolin, ampicillin-sulbactam, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, and enrofloxacin were the most prescribed systemic antibiotics. Of the 365 prescriptions for dogs, surgical (91, 24.9%), respiratory (38, 10.4%), dermatologic (28, 7.7%), and urinary (23, 6.3%) were the most common indications. For cats, common indications included surgical (11/87, 12.6%), urinary (9/87, 10.3%), and hepatic (7/87, 8.0%).

Conclusions and clinical importance– Use of broad-spectrum antibiotics is common in the teaching hospital setting. Further analysis of appropriateness will help determine where reductions in prescribing would be safe and effective.