The first nationwide survey of antimicrobial stewardship programs conducted by the Japanese Society of Chemotherapy

Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) aims to improve the appropriateness of antimicrobial use to reduce resistance and benefit individual patients. Since the concept of AMS was first introduced in the 1970s [1], guidelines were issued in 2007 and 2016 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) [2,3]. A previous meta-analysis reported that there were limited data on AMS in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan [4]. In August 2017, the Japanese Society of Chemotherapy (JSC), along with the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases, the Japanese Society for Infection Prevention and Control, the Japanese Society for Clinical Microbiology, the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan, the Japanese Society of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences, the Japanese Society of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, and the Japanese Society for Medical Mycology Joint Committee issued guidance for implementing antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) to promote strategic and organizational aspects of AMS [5].