Antimicrobials News

Entasis Therapeutics announced the start of a global phase 3 clinical trial to evaluate a novel antibiotic for the treatment of patients with pneumonia and bloodstream infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, with the hope of filing a new drug application with the FDA once the trial is complete.

Children presenting to EDs and other outpatient settings with community-acquired pneumonia, or CAP, often receive unnecessary diagnostic interventions and treatments, including chest X-rays and antibiotic therapy, according to research published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society.

An electronic health record-based antimicrobial time-out that prompted prescribers after 72 hours “to review antimicrobials with an empiric indication and no defined duration” resulted in the discontinuation or de-escalation of 21% of empiric antimicrobials at a large health system within 6 hours after the antibiotic time-out alert, researchers reported.

Less than 60% of prescriptions for the treatment of cervicitis/urethritis and pelvic inflammatory disease among teens were filled during a 2-year study period conducted at two urban pediatric EDs, according to a research letter published today in JAMA Pediatrics. The researchers found that hospital admission was the only factor associated with prescription filling.

Nearly one-third of hematology-oncology patients at one Seattle cancer treatment center were prescribed antibiotics for upper respiratory infections despite respiratory viruses being detected in most tested patients, according to study findings.

Probiotics proved more effective than a placebo at reducing the risk for UTI recurrence in children with a normal urinary tract after their first episode of febrile UTI, according to results of a randomized clinical trial published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

My path toward the field of infectious diseases was a bit winding. My love for immunology began at a young age. I was inspired to become an immunologist by my father, a rheumatologist and immunologist, whose license plate happens to be “T cell.” From the beginning, he made learning about the immune system fun and this still rings true with me today. At age 15, I spent my summer in the Cleveland Clinic microbiology lab with Dr. Belinda Yen-Lieberman. She taught me about virology, and I became fascinated with HIV. I always knew I wanted to be a rheumatologist but discovered that the intersection of infectious disease and rheumatology was the niche for me. With an immense amount of support from Carlos Isada, my ID program director, and Abby Abelson, my rheumatology program director, as well as from my father, I was fortunate to serve as the beta test subject of a 3-year combined fellowship in rheumatology and infectious disease, from which I graduated in 2018. Dr. Isada is the type of physician who is hard to come by these days — being a doctor is not “just a job” for him, but a life passion, and learning from him made it impossible to do anything but love the field of infectious diseases. Today I am lucky to practice medicine at the intersection of my two passions — seeing patients with infectious complications of immunosuppression, rheumatic manifestations of infections and HIV, and focusing on infection prevention and immunization. I am also lucky to get to work with my dad every day (and my sister, who also works in my department). I learn something new and have fun every day.

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, pose an important threat to public health and a treatment challenge to clinicians. Further complicating the management of infections caused by these pathogens is uncertainty over how a pathogen developed carbapenem resistance: expression of carbapenemase enzymes (CP-CRE) or other mechanisms (non-CP-CRE).

Patients with acute decompensated heart failure who were treated with IV antibiotics — without evidence of infection — experienced longer hospital stays, required more diuretics and were more likely to be readmitted compared with patients with acute decompensated heart failure who were not exposed to IV antibiotics, researchers reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Longer courses of antibiotic therapy for skin and soft tissue infections are not associated with lower treatment failure rates in patients with obesity and heart failure, or both, study findings suggested.