Seminars in respiratory and critical care medicine
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Semin Respir Crit Care Med · Feb 2015
ReviewCombination Antibiotic Treatment of Serious Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Infections.
Outcomes from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are relatively poor, at least in part due to the limitations of vancomycin (the current standard treatment for MRSA). Combination antibiotic treatment for MRSA infections is an attractive alternative as it could address most of vancomycin's shortcomings, including poor tissue penetration, slow bacterial killing, and emerging resistance in some strains of MRSA. However, the theoretical promise of combination therapy for MRSA infections has not been borne out in most in vitro and animal studies. ⋯ Although MRSA is by definition inherently resistant to nearly all β-lactam antibiotics, this class of drugs has consistently shown evidence of synergy with either daptomycin or vancomycin in over 25 separate in vitro studies, and a limited number of animal and human observational studies. However, there are currently insufficient data to recommend β-lactam combination therapy in routine clinical use. Results of current and planned randomized controlled trials of this strategy are awaited.
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Semin Respir Crit Care Med · Feb 2015
ReviewPseudomonas aeruginosa: Evolution of Antimicrobial Resistance and Implications for Therapy.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a formidable pathogen in the infection arena. It is able to easily adapt to the environment which it inhabits and can also colonize and invade the human host to cause serious infections. In 2011, it was responsible for 7.1% of all health care-associated infection in the United States. ⋯ With this has come reduced antibiotic treatment options. Consideration of antibiotic infusions, combination therapy, and inhalational therapy has occurred in an attempt to gain the upper ground. Gram-negative resistance has appropriately been described as a global emergency.
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Semin Respir Crit Care Med · Feb 2015
ReviewMelioidosis: evolving concepts in epidemiology, pathogenesis, and treatment.
Infection with Burkholderia pseudomallei can result in asymptomatic seroconversion, a single skin lesion that may or may not heal spontaneously, a pneumonia which can be subacute or chronic and mimic tuberculosis or rapidly progressive resulting in fatal overwhelming sepsis. Latency with subsequent activation of disease is well recognized, but very uncommon. Melioidosis also has a myriad of other clinical presentations and diagnosis is often delayed because of this and because of difficulties with laboratory diagnosis and lack of recognition outside melioidosis-endemic regions. ⋯ While biothreat research is directed toward potential aerosol exposure to B. pseudomallei, the overall proportion of melioidosis cases resulting from inhalation rather than from percutaneous inoculation remains entirely uncertain, although the epidemiology supports a shift to inhalation during severe weather events such as cyclones and typhoons. What makes B. pseudomallei such a dangerous organism for patients with diabetes and other selective risk factors remains unclear, but microbial genome-wide association studies linking clinical aspects of melioidosis cases to nonubiquitous or polymorphic B. pseudomallei genes or genomic islands are beginning to uncover specific virulence signatures. Finally, what also remains uncertain is the global phylogeography of B. pseudomallei and whether melioidosis is spreading beyond historical locations or is just being unmasked in Africa and the Americas by better recognition and increased surveillance.