Antimicrobial susceptibility monitoring of bacterial pathogens isolated from respiratory tract infections in dogs and cats across Europe: ComPath results

• The performance of a pan-European resistance monitoring programme is presented.
• Dog and cat respiratory pathogens were tested for antimicrobial susceptibilities.
• Low to moderate resistance to antibiotics with breakpoints, except for tetracycline.
• Regarding antibiotics without breakpoints, setting of breakpoints is important.

ComPath is a pan-European resistance monitoring programme collecting bacterial pathogens from dogs and cats. We present data for respiratory tract infection (RTI) isolates collected between 2008 and 2010. Antimicrobial minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined and susceptibility calculated following Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) standards for veterinary medicine. The main pathogen from dogs was Staphylococcus intermedius Group (49/215, 22.8%) which was >90% susceptible to most antimicrobials (including oxacillin − 93.9%; 3 isolates confirmed mecA-positive) but only 59.2%, 73.5% and 87.8% susceptible to tetracycline, chloramphenicol and penicillin. Bordetella bronchiseptica (48/215, 22.3%), streptococci (36/215, 16.7%), Escherichia coli (24/215, 11.2%) and Pasteurella multocida (23/215, 10.7%) were also found in dog RTI. There are no breakpoints for Bordetella bronchiseptica. Most streptococci were penicillin- chloramphenicol-, ampicillin- and pradofloxacin-susceptible. None were enrofloxacin-resistant but 6 isolates (16.7%) were of intermediate susceptibility. The least active agent against streptococci was tetracycline (47.2% susceptible). For E. coli, 37.5% were ampicillin-susceptible but 83.3% were amoxicillin/clavulanic acid-susceptible. Only chloramphenicol showed susceptibility >90% against E. coli, with 66.7% tetracycline-susceptible and 79.2% to 87.5% susceptibility to enrofloxacin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole or pradofloxacin. P. multocida were susceptible to pradofloxacin (no other breakpoints are available). The main pathogen from cats was P. multocida (82/186, 44.1%), where only pradofloxacin has breakpoints (100% susceptible). Streptococci were also collected from cats (25/186, 13.4%) and were >90% susceptible to all antimicrobials except tetracycline (36% susceptible). Most susceptibility was calculated with human-derived breakpoints and some antimicrobials had no breakpoints. Therefore predictions of clinical utility for dog and cat RTI will remain problematical unless specific breakpoints are set.