Critically important antimicrobials are generally not needed to treat nonsevere clinical mastitis in lactating dairy cows: Results from a network meta-analysis

摘要

There is ongoing debate regarding whether criticallyimportant antimicrobials (CIA) should be usedto treat infections in food-producing animals. In thissystematic review, we determined whether CIA andnon-CIA have comparable efficacy to treat nonseverebovine clinical mastitis caused by the most commonlyreported bacteria that cause mastitis worldwide. Wescreened CAB Abstracts, Web of Science, MEDLINE,Scopus, and PubMed for original epidemiological studiesthat assessed pathogen-specific bacteriological curerates of antimicrobials used to treat nonsevere clinicalmastitis in lactating dairy cows. Network models werefit using risk ratios of bacteriological cure as outcome.A total of 30 studies met inclusion criteria. Comparisonsof cure rates demonstrated that CIA and non-CIAhad comparable efficacy for treatment of nonsevereclinical mastitis in dairy cattle. Additionally, for cowswith nonsevere clinical mastitis caused by Escherichiacoli and Klebsiella spp., bacteriological cure rates werecomparable for treated versus untreated cows; therefore,there was no evidence to justify treatment of thesecases with CIA. Our findings supported that CIA ingeneral are not necessary for treating nonsevere clinicalmastitis in dairy cattle, the disease that accountsfor the majority of antimicrobial usage in dairy herdsworldwide. Furthermore, our findings support initiativesto reduce or eliminate use of CIA in dairy herds.