Antibioticatherapie bij een positieve urinekweek

Asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) indicates a positive urine culture in a sample collected from a patient without symptoms of a urinary tract infection. Treatment of ASB is not recommended for most patient groups, and can even be harmful. However, despite the increase in antimicrobial resistance, which is mainly caused by antibiotic use, prescription of antimicrobials for ASB is one of the most common unnecessary treatments. Unfortunately, the results of a recent retrospective cohort study showed that more than 80% of 2,733 patients with ASB were treated with antibiotics. In the era of ‘less is more’, we need to take action to reduce the rate of inappropriate urine cultures and overtreatment of ASB.

Conflict of interest and financial support: potential conflicts of interest have been reported for this article. ICMJE forms provided by the authors are available online along with the full text of this article.