The clinical definitions used were as follows: cure, absence of clinical or laboratory evidence of infection or causative pathogen after completion of antimicrobial therapy and at follow-up failure/relapse, recovery of the index pathogen from sterile-site specimens or clinical deterioration resulting in retreatment or death attributable to infection during follow-up indeterminate, death of the patient from causes other than infection or treatment-related toxicity during the follow-up period. The patient information collected included age, sex, presence of diabetes or immunosuppressive conditions, need for hemodialysis and/or intensive care unit admission during hospitalization, prior antibiotic therapy, clinical and bacteriological indication for linezolid therapy, ARs, and clinical outcomes.
We retrospectively assessed the medical records of all patients treated intravenously (i.v.) or orally with linezolid for >7 days during the 40 months from December 2000 to April 2004 at the Austin Hospital, a 480-bed university teaching hospital. To better assess the efficacy and toxicity of linezolid in this patient group, we undertook a retrospective review of consecutive patients treated with linezolid at our institution. Although a number of postmarketing studies have assessed the adverse reactions (ARs) associated with linezolid ( 4, 15- 17), few have evaluated complex patients with multiple comorbidities who often require prolonged therapy. Linezolid has documented efficacy in a range of conditions requiring generally short-course therapy ( 15- 18). The emergence of serious infections due to multiresistant gram-positive pathogens, including heterogeneous vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (hVISA), has necessitated the increasing use of linezolid ( 4).
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