Surgical site infections account for the largest proportion of the estimated $10 billion annual cost of the top five most frequent hospital acquired infections in the U.S., with colon surgeries being among the top five most common surgeries. Not only do post-surgical infection rates differ from hospital to hospital, but antibiotic resistance also varies. In addition to the implications for community acquired infection, “this is going to make routine surgeries much more difficult,”says Luke. Over-prescription and inappropriate use of antibiotics have contributed to complications in effective antimicrobial chemotherapy, and are now beginning to represent significant costs to hospitals. Because data on surgical site infections are reported to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and tied to hospital reimbursement, hospitals are incentivized to make investments in infection prevention and antibiotic stewardship, says Luke, who is mining this data for his MPH thesis.
In his internship last summer, Luke worked for a major pharmaceutical company and examined reasons why the research pipeline for antibiotic drugs with novel mechanisms of action has slowed . “From the industry perspective, the short time it takes resistance to develop for a new antibiotic makes it hard to justify the resource investment to develop and bring the drug to market, representing a major threat to public health,” says Luke. Through his work, he hopes to highlight the clinical impact of maintaining a balance between the development of novel antibiotic drugs and the incentivization of effective stewardship to ensure sustained drug efficacy.