Articles related to ANTIBIOTICS

Although many organizations advise reducing the range of antibiotic therapy for hospitalized patients in light of laboratory findings, some are challenging the validity of the practice. One expert argued that there are insufficiently strong data on spectrum de-escalation to determine whether it improves outcomes.

A commentary with perspective on the clinical practice implications of the Comparison of Outcomes of Antibiotic Drugs and Appendectomy (CODA) trial, which demonstrated short-term noninferiority of antibiotic therapy vs. surgical therapy for patients diagnosed with acute appendicitis.

New guidelines recommend that internists treat uncomplicated diverticulitis in an outpatient setting without the use of antibiotics. The new guidelines on diagnosis and management of patients with diverticulitis have been published by the Annals of Internal Medicine. And they are stirring up debate among physicians.

In practice, “standard” duration of antibiotic therapy is often based on archaic studies. Newer evidence shows that shorter durations are often a better choice and that antibiotic resistance is more likely to develop with longer durations of therapy. Here are the recommendations applied to four commonly treated infections.

In a study in the journal Nature Cancer, the researchers found that in laboratory cell lines and tumor models novobiocin selectively killed tumor cells with abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which help repair damaged DNA. The drug, developed in the 1950s and largely supplanted by newer drugs, was effective even in tumors resistant to agents known as PARP inhibitors, which have become a prime therapy for cancers with DNA-repair glitches.

Taken from the Annals of Internal Medicine, these clinical guidelines describe best practices for prescribing appropriate and short-duration antibiotic therapy for patients presenting with these four infections: acute bronchitis with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation, community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), urinary tract infections (UTIs), and cellulitis.