[Regulation of the use of antibiotics: objectives, means and perspectives]

Antibiotics account for an important fraction of hospital pharmaceutical expense, especially in intensive care units. Moreover, they represent a permanent threat for bacterial ecology. Induced resistance tends, in turn, to inflate the costs. In that way, economical point of view and concerns for quality and safety of care become convergent. Restrictive and(or) educational actions to regulate the prescriptions have therefore been settled in many centres. In the present review, based on published studies, we describe some examples of the results achieved from these actions. Computer-based networks and expert systems offer promising possibilities of improvement for the near future.