[Epidemiology of the most widespread bacterial infections and current trends in use of antibiotics].

The last decade has seen a greater use of broad spectrum antibiotics at the expense of those with limited spectrum. With this in mind, the trends in the commonest bacterial, respiratory, gastroenteric and urinary infections from 1963 to 1974 have been analysed with a view to identify correlations between epidemiology and trends in antibotic consumption. The epidemiological investigation was carried out on the INAM health institution assisted population, i.e. on a sample of more than thirty million subjects throughout the country. Diseases with prevalently Gram-positive aetiology (acute and chronic infections of the respiratory tract) and those with prevalently Gram-negative aetiology (infections of the urinary tract) were examined and the data obtained processed statistically. It is personally considered that study of this pathology over the last decade is not enough to explain the tendency to make use almost exclusively of broad spectrum antibiotics and the serious clinical, epidemiological and social implications deriving from the dissemination of multiresistant bacterial strains.