The Alert
Your patient is infected with MRSA. The next 48 hours of information could be critical to their survival.
Your patient is infected with MRSA. The next 48 hours of information could be critical to their survival.
An estimated 80,461 severe MRSA infections and 11,285 MRSA-related deaths occur each year in the United States.1
Antibiotic resistance is growing, igniting the need for different antimicrobial agents to treat serious infections.2
Empiric therapy should be initiated while diagnostic measures are completed, but once the clinical picture becomes clear, it’s time to take action.3
The CDC Guidelines state that 48 hours after an antibiotic is initiated, a time-out should be performed to assess its effectiveness and answer these key questions3:
Does this patient have an infection that will respond to antibiotics?
If so, is the patient on the right antibiotic(s), dose, and route of administration?
Can a more targeted antibiotic be used to treat the infection (de-escalate)?
For how long should the patient receive the antibiotic(s)?
The bug has doubled 96 times.4* Consider a treatment with low MICs, high levels of tissue penetration, and 6-hour bactericidal activity maintained up to 24 hours.
*Generation time under optimal conditions for growth.
References: 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States. 2013. 2. Rodvold KA. Telavancin for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections. Clin Infect Dis. 2015;61(Suppl 2): S35-S37 3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Core Elements of Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship Programs. 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/healthcare/ implementation/core-elements.html. Accessed May 2, 2018. 4. Todar K. The Growth of Bacteria Populations. Todar’s Online Textbook of Bacteriology. 2008-2012. http://textbookofbacteriology.net/growth_3.html. Accessed May 2, 2018.
