Methodology of this function is based on: \strong{M39 Analysis and Presentation of Cumulative Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test Data, 4th Edition}, 2014, \emph{Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)}. \url{https://clsi.org/standards/products/microbiology/documents/m39/}.
\item{col_patient_id}{column name of the unique IDs of the patients, defaults to the first column that starts with 'patient' or 'patid' (case insensitive)}
\item{col_mo}{column name of the unique IDs of the microorganisms (see \code{\link{mo}}), defaults to the first column of class \code{mo}. Values will be coerced using \code{\link{as.mo}}.}
\item{col_testcode}{column name of the test codes. Use \code{col_testcode = NULL} to \strong{not} exclude certain test codes (like test codes for screening). In that case \code{testcodes_exclude} will be ignored.}
\item{col_keyantibiotics}{column name of the key antibiotics to determine first \emph{weighted} isolates, see \code{\link{key_antibiotics}}. Defaults to the first column that starts with 'key' followed by 'ab' or 'antibiotics' (case insensitive). Use \code{col_keyantibiotics = FALSE} to prevent this.}
\item{type}{type to determine weighed isolates; can be \code{"keyantibiotics"} or \code{"points"}, see Details}
\item{ignore_I}{logical to determine whether antibiotic interpretations with \code{"I"} will be ignored when \code{type = "keyantibiotics"}, see Details}
\item{points_threshold}{points until the comparison of key antibiotics will lead to inclusion of an isolate when \code{type = "points"}, see Details}
To conduct an analysis of antimicrobial resistance, you should only include the first isolate of every patient per episode \href{https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17304462}{[1]}. If you would not do this, you could easily get an overestimate or underestimate of the resistance of an antibiotic. Imagine that a patient was admitted with an MRSA and that it was found in 5 different blood cultures the following week. The resistance percentage of oxacillin of all \emph{S. aureus} isolates would be overestimated, because you included this MRSA more than once. It would be \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias}{selection bias}.
The function \code{filter_first_isolate} is essentially equal to:
Any difference from S to R (or vice versa) will (re)select an isolate as a first weighted isolate. With \code{ignore_I = FALSE}, also differences from I to S|R (or vice versa) will lead to this. This is a reliable method and 30-35 times faster than method 2. \cr
A difference from I to S|R (or vice versa) means 0.5 points, a difference from S to R (or vice versa) means 1 point. When the sum of points exceeds \code{points_threshold}, an isolate will be (re)selected as a first weighted isolate.
On our website \url{https://msberends.gitlab.io/AMR} you can find \href{https://msberends.gitlab.io/AMR/articles/AMR.html}{a comprehensive tutorial} about how to conduct AMR analysis, the \href{https://msberends.gitlab.io/AMR/reference}{complete documentation of all functions} (which reads a lot easier than here in R) and \href{https://msberends.gitlab.io/AMR/articles/WHONET.html}{an example analysis using WHONET data}.