Are there Patients with Peritonitis Who Require Empiric Therapy for Enterococcus?

Enterococci are an increasingly important cause of nosocomial infections. While the clinical impact of enterococci in cases of bacteremia and super-infections in selected patient populations has been well-established, their role as primary pathogens in polymicrobial intra-abdominal infections remains controversial. While it has been suggested that the presence of enterococci increases the rate of infectious post-operative complication, it has also been demonstrated that polymicrobial intra-abdominal infections involving enterococci can be treated successfully with appropriate surgical drainage and antibiotics, such as cephalosporins, that are not active against enterococci. Therefore, the question arises of whether or not antibiotic coverage against enterococci should be included in the empirical treatment of peritonitis in certain high-risk patient populations. An extensive literature review revealed some evidence arguing in favour of using empirical therapy with enterococcal coverage for intra-abdominal infections in the following cases: (i) immunocompromised patients with nosocomial, post-operative peritonitis; (ii) patients with severe sepsis of abdominal origin who have previously received cephalosporins and other broad-spectrum antibiotics selecting for Enterococcus spp.; (iii) patients with peritonitis and valvular heart disease or prosthetic intravascular material, which place them at high risk of endocarditis. The ideal therapeutic regimen for these high-risk patients remains to be determined, but empirical therapy directed against enterococci should be considere

Interventions to control MRSA: high time for time-series analysis?

Time-series methods are useful in quasi-experimental study designs in which rates of antibiotic-resistant infections are ascertained before and after an intervention. However, uncertainties remain regarding the use of time-series analysis as an appropriate research methodology for analysing the effect of infection control interventions and antibiotic policies on the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In particular, there is still a substantial gap in our understanding of what actually happens to MRSA incidence when a planned intervention is made on use of one or more antibiotic drug classe

A Public Health Emergency of International Concern? Response to a Proposal to Apply the International Health Regulations to Antimicrobial Resistance

Adam Kamradt-Scott critiques a proposal to apply the International Health Regulations (IHR) to the global health threat of antimicrobial resistance

Lack of effect of combination antibiotic therapy on mortality in patients with pneumococcal sepsis

In order to determine whether combination antibiotic therapy decreases mortality after severe pneumococcal infection, a retrospective study of a cohort of 1,840 adult patients with severe sepsis or septic shock enrolled in two multicenter clinical trials between 1994 and 1999 was conducted. Among 107 patients with monobacterial pneumococcal sepsis, the case-fatality rate was 20% (five of 25) for patients who received antibiotic monotherapy compared with 19.5% (16 of 82) for patients who received combination therapy (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.4-3.1). Similarly, monotherapy did not increase the risk of death (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.2-4.8) among bacteremic patients (n=75). However, the latter analysis may have been underpowered (power, 58%) to detect a difference in mortality. Overall, in contrast to recently published reports, these results suggest that combination antibiotic therapy does not decrease mortality after severe pneumococcal sepsi

Classifying antibiotics in the WHO Essential Medicines List for optimal use—be AWaRe

International audienc

Posttraumatic ankle arthritis due to a novel Nocardia species

Introduction: Nocardial arthritis in immunocompetent patients is rare, and the optimum duration of antimicrobial therapy is unknown, although several months of antibiotic treatment is often recommended. Case report: We here report the first case of human infection with a novel Nocardia sp., summarise the epidemiology of nocardial arthritis and outline the feasibility of relatively short antibiotic treatments after careful surgical drainag