Friday, October 30, 2009
Infectious tidbits
More hot stuff in infectious disease, this time from Bennett Lorber, MD. Dr. Lorber reviewed an array of recent research yesterday at IDSA. Here's the super-condensed version of his conclusions:
It's pretty clear that acid-suppressive medications are increasing the risk of pneumonia, and thereby causing excess hospital deaths, so they should not be prescribed so broadly. "We need to tell our medicine and hospital colleagues that acid-suppression should be a carefully considered decision," Dr. Lorber told the infectious disease docs.
Prescribing prophylactic antibiotics before catheter removal, on the other hand, is supported by new evidence. A recent trial found a NNT of 6 to prevent symptomatic infection. "We don't like this idea, but it's a pretty good study," Dr. Lorber said.
However, if you're trying to prevent infections after cardiac surgery, there's not enough evidence to justify putting patients on a statin before the procedure. A recent cohort study found that statins weren't associated with reduced post-op infections.
And finally, if you suspect a prosthetic joint infection, tell the lab to hold on to the specimen for at least 2 weeks, because a recent study showed that about a quarter of bacteria grown in cultures didn't show up until after a week had passed.
Labels: infectious diseases
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
1:11 PM
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