One of the trickiest issues in prescribing linezolid for patients with MRSA or VRE infections is the potential for a drug-drug interaction, leading to serotonin syndrome (SS), with various serotonergic psychiatric medications. It seems that every pharmacy computer system in the world goes crazy with warnings when you attempt to write for this antibiotic while … Read more
As I have mentioned in a previous post there are a number of journals I follow to stay abreast of developments in the ID, microbiology and antibiotic world. For updates on the latest in antibiotic development from pre-clinical through clinical testing no journal beats the American Society of Microbiology’s Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (http://asm.org/). Just … Read more
For a number of years I have referred in my lectures to the word I have termed “Pseudomonaphobia”. Basically, this is an irrational fear of the organism Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) when isolated from a culture of a wound in the foot. I really believe that this arises in most Podiatrists during the residency interview process … Read more
With this entry onto the blog I am trying something new. The IT team at Data Trace has been working on a way to post a PowerPoint slide show to the blog. We believe it is now ready to go. For this first PowerPoint, I am posting the lecture I gave at DFCON 2011 in … Read more
I just returned from the DFCON meeting in Los Angeles, always my favorite scientific conferences of the year (I have blogged about it previously https://www.leinfections.com/diabetic-foot/the-olmos-award-and-dfcon-2010/). My topic this year was “Drugs and Bugs 2011”. Since I gave a similar talk last year I had to try to find a few “hot” topics to update the … Read more
For part 2 of this posting on the new Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) MRSA Guidelines I would like to comment on some of the Executive Summary points made about MRSA bone and joint infections and also vancomycin dosing recommendations. I will use a similar format as before with posting the actual text and … Read more
I received this question from a reader: In suspected osteomyelitis do you stop antibiotics prior to obtaining a bone culture? For how long? This comment came in under my entry on the VULCAN trial but I actually covered the question in a post almost exactly a year ago. I am reprinting my response here for … Read more
Well, as I expected and predicted in my previous post, the FDA did not waste much time approving ceftaroline (trade name – Teflaro) for complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSI). http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm231594.htm (thanks to Lee Rogers, DPM for forwarding me this link). What does this mean for those of us treating lower extremity infections? It … Read more
For a number of years it was widely felt that the first of the new so-called “5th Generation”, or anti-MRSA cephalosporins would be ceftobiprole. This drug, a joint venture by the Swiss company Basilea and Johnson & Johnson had come under some fire from the FDA (see my blog entry from Dec 31, 2009) and … Read more
There is a small group of us that, when we find an interesting article dealing with infections, we pass them on so we can all be stay up to date. Some of the journals are fairly obscure and are not in my usual monthly reading so I find this a great way to read articles … Read more