Special Issue "Current Trends, Recent Advances and Applications of Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT)"

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2023 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/antibiotics/special_issues/2YSPEA96RR

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past few decades, we have seen significant changes in the delivery of healthcare from hospitals to community and home settings due to technological advancements, changes in medical culture, and efforts to manage costs and patient preferences. A major advancement to this changing environment has been the development of outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) programs to treat, in a safe and efficient manner, a wide variety of infections in selected patients.

This Special Issue welcomes high-quality papers that highlight advances, innovations, and new applications of OPAT. Original research, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, short communications, case series, and perspectives will be invited.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• National and international surveys of OPAT practices;
• Safety, effectiveness, and clinical utility of new antimicrobial agents, models, and bundles for OPAT;
• Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessments for patients receiving OPAT;
• Changes in modes of OPAT delivery;
• Head-to-head studies comparing OPAT with other related models such as hospital in the home services;
• OPAT for new populations, including incurable infection or infections at the end of life and difficult-to-reach groups such as people who inject drugs and those who are homeless;
• Challenges of antimicrobial stewardship in the context of OPAT;
• Quality indicators for antibiotic prescribing in OPAT; and
• Drug stability of antibiotic agents used for extended infusions.

Dr. Oyewole Christopher Durojaiye
Dr. Joby Cole
Dr. Evangelos I. Kritsotakis
Guest Editors

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Oyewole Christopher Durojaiye
1. Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK
2. Department of Microbiology, Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, UK
Interests: outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT); infectious diseases; viral hepatitis; bone and joint infections.

Dr. Joby Cole
Department of Infection, Immunity & Cardiovascular Diseases, University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, Sheffield, UK
Interests: infectious diseases; COVID medicines delivery unit (CMDU).

Dr. Evangelos I. Kritsotakis 
1. School of Medicine, University of Crete, Crete, Greece
2. School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Interests: medical statistics; epidemiological methods; healthcare epidemiology; infection control; antimicrobial resistance; surveillance; public health.