New Antibiotics Underprescribed For Difficult-To-Treat Infections, Study Finds

Healio (4/19, Rhoades) reported, “More than 40% of patients with difficult-to-treat pathogens were prescribed older, generic agents despite the FDA approval of several new gram-negative antibiotics, findings showed.” In the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “patients with DTR pathogens were treated exclusively with traditional generic agents in 41.5% of DTR episodes, including 79.3% of DTR episodes where ‘these older agents were agents with known suboptimal safety and/or efficacy such as polymyxins, aminoglycosides, and tigecycline,’ the researchers noted.”