I have written in the past about my excitement over new molecular techniques to diagnose lower extremity infections. I really believe that this is the future for both bacterial and fungal disease. These tests are incredibly sensitive, specific and rapid with results possible in hours rather than days. My greatest concern has been that, to … Read more
When most of us think about minocycline it is for the oral treatment of gram positive infection, in particular MRSA. In fact, the drug is effective against multidrug resistant gram negative organisms, including Acinetobacter baumannii (AB). This point was driven home to me recently when I saw that my favorite ID journal Clinical Infectious Diseases … Read more
USA Today ran an interesting story yesterday about a 19 year old woman given an antibiotic by a friend for a “sore throat” who developed Stevens Johnson Syndrome. This is a terrible incident and my thoughts and prayers go out to the young woman and her family. What bothered me however was the way in … Read more
Just over a week ago my good friend and colleague in lower extremity ID, Mark Kosinski, DPM, FIDSA and I were interviewed by Miriam Tucker, a reporter for Medscape, about a recent paper that compared 6 weeks vs 12 weeks of antibiotic therapy for DFO that did not undergo surgical debridement. The impetus for this interview … Read more
In my post last week I mentioned I would write a follow up to discuss my opinions on the use of these drugs for lower extremity infections. I have not yet had the opportunity to try either so these are really “top line” thoughts taken what I know, have read or heard from others, into … Read more
In this entry I will continue to explore some of the new antibiotics that have been recently approved for use in acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). I will discuss these two together since they are quite similar in a number of important ways and share many of the same properties. Both dalbavancin … Read more
I have been doing LOTS of talks on onychomycosis over the past few months. The vast majority of these have been CME lectures where I spend significantly more time reviewing the background information of onycho than talking about new drug therapies. What has amazed me since I first started speaking on this topic over 25 … Read more
As I mentioned in my previous post, this has been a pretty exciting time in the area of lower extremity infectious diseases. Not only do we have 2 new drugs for onychomycosis (to be covered in future posts) but we also have 3 new FDA approved antibiotics for the treatment of, in FDA Speak; “acute … Read more
Dear Readers, It’s been awhile. Time really does fly. I realize it has been over a year and a half since my last post. I really don’t have any excuses. Life just seems to happen that way. One day I am posting all sorts of updates on what’s happening in the world of lower extremity … Read more
I am sorry that it has been so long since I put up a post. Things have been slightly hectic. Unfortunately, instead of reporting on new infectious disease information, with this entry I find myself responding to a story about my receiving payments to lecture from the pharmaceutical industry. The story ran today (3/13/13) in … Read more