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Potential Role for Telavancin in Bacteremic Infections Due to Gram-Positive Pathogens: Focus on Staphylococcus aureus.
Clin Infect Dis. 2014 Dec 3;
Authors: Corey GR, Rubinstein E, Stryjewski ME, Bassetti M, Barriere SL
Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) is one of the most common serious bacterial infections and the most frequent invasive infection due to methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Treatment of SAB is challenging, with metastatic and relapsing infections commonplace, and is particularly difficult in patients with MRSA owing to limited treatment options. Telavancin is a bactericidal lipoglycopeptide antibiotic that is active against a range of clinically relevant Gram-positive pathogens, including MRSA. In experimental animal models of sepsis, using human exposures, telavancin has been shown to be more effective than vancomycin. In clinically evaluable patients enrolled in a pilot study of uncomplicated SAB, cure rates were 88% for telavancin and 89% for standard therapy. Among patients with infection due to only Gram-positive pathogens enrolled in the two phase 3 studies of telavancin for treatment of hospital-acquired pneumonia, cure rates for those with bacteremic S. aureus pneumonia were 41% (9/22, telavancin) and 40% (10/25, vancomycin) with identical mortality rates. These data support further evaluation of telavancin in larger, prospective studies of SAB.
PMID: 25472944 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]