US Pharm. 2012;37(9):6.
Waltham and Boston, MA—Vancomycin, the antibiotic most commonly prescribed to treat bloodstream infections in dialysis patients, may not always be the best choice. Researchers compared the effectiveness of various antibiotics in preventing hospitalization and death from bloodstream infection by reviewing more than 500,000 blood-culture results from a chronic kidney disease database, looking for methicillin-sensitive strains of Staphylococcus aureus and identifying the use of vancomycin or cefazolin to treat these infections. Patients treated with cefazolin, which is less often prescribed for bloodstream infections, had a 38% lower rate of hospitalization and death than vancomycin-treated patients, and a 48% lower rate of sepsis. The data suggest that outcomes for patients with bloodstream infections may be improved through appropriate antibiotic selection.
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