INTRODUCTION Hospitals all over Canada are realizing that Clostridium difficile can kill. The Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, Ontario, declared a C. difficile outbreak on February 23, 2007, after 39 new cases of C. difficile—associated disease (CDAD) were identified since the start of the year. Before this period, the baseline monthly incidence of hospital-acquired CDAD [...]
Continue reading " A Small Group of Pharmacists Makes a Big Impact "
Other Evidence Two additional prospective, randomized, open trials that assessed aminoglycosides in combination with 6-lactams were identified. These trials included comparator arms that did not directly provide information relevant to the original question upon which this review is based. For this reason, these trials are not amenable to classification according to the rating scale employed [...]
Continue reading " Aminoglycosides in Combination Therapy: RESULTS part 4 "
Level III Evidence Level III evidence is represented by the opinions of respected authorities, based on their clinical experience; by descriptive studies and case reports; and by reports of committees. Prospective Noncomparative Studies Two prospective noncomparative trials assessed the efficacy of short-course combination therapy in IVDUs with uncomplicated right-sided S. aureus endocarditis, each using a [...]
Continue reading " Aminoglycosides in Combination Therapy: RESULTS part 3 "
Level II-2 evidence Level II-2 evidence is defined as evidence from well- designed cohort or case-control analytic studies, preferably from more than one centre or research group. The single prospective comparative trial included in the meta-analysis described earlier was also found to provide relevant information for the current systematic review, albeit only from a subgroup [...]
Continue reading " Aminoglycosides in Combination Therapy: RESULTS part 2 "
Level I Evidence Level I evidence is defined as evidence from at least one properly conducted randomized controlled trial (RCT). Meta-analysis The single recently published meta-analysis examining the role of aminoglycosides in combination with 6-lactams for the treatment of bacterial endocarditis caused by gram-positive cocci represents the highest level of evidence on this topic. Four [...]
Continue reading " Aminoglycosides in Combination Therapy: RESULTS "
A literature search was conducted within PubMed (1949 to the present), EMBASE (1980 to the present), and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, using the following search terms: “aminoglycoside”, “gentamicin”, “tobramycin”, “amikacin”, “netilmicin”, “streptomycin”, “staphylococcal”, and “endocarditis”. The objective of the search was to identify studies that specifically assessed aminoglycosides in combination with 6-lactams for [...]
Continue reading " Aminoglycosides in Combination Therapy: METHODS "
INTRODUCTION Staphylococcus aureus is one of the leading О causes of infective endocarditis. Although health care contact has been increasingly implicated in S. aureus endocarditis, the conventional association has been with injection drug use and, as such, much of the existing literature on treatment modalities has selectively evaluated the intravenous drug user (IVDU) population.1 Mortality [...]
