OBJECTIVE To compare ertapenem therapy with piperacillin-tazobactam therapy for the management of acute pelvic infections. METHODS In a multicenter, double-blind study, 412 women with acute pelvic infection were assigned to one of two strata, namely obstetric/postpartum infection or gynecologic/postoperative infection, and were then randomized to ertapenem, 1 g once a day, or piperacillin-taz...

Ertapenem is a Group 1 carbapenem that was licensed in the USA in November 2001 and in Europe in April 2002. Its safety profile has been assessed in 240 healthy volunteers participating in 12 clinical pharmacology studies and in 2046 patients enrolled in five Phase IIa and eight Phase IIb/III clinical trials. The most common drug-related adverse events (AEs) reported in trials comparing ertapen...

Bowel colonization with resistant bacteria can develop in patients receiving broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapy. We compared the impact of two antimicrobial regimens often used to treat intraabdominal infections on susceptibility patterns of bowel flora at the end of therapy. In a double-blind clinical trial, adults with complicated intraabdominal infection requiring surgery were randomized t...

BACKGROUND Meropenem is a carbapenem that has an excellent activity against many gram-positive and gram-negative aerobic, facultative, and anaerobic bacteria. The major objective of the present study was to assess the in vitro activity of meropenem compared to imipenem and piperacillin/tazobactam, against 1071 non-repetitive isolates collected from patients with bacteremia (55%), pneumonia (29%...

Background. Piperacillin/tazobactam is an ureidopenicillin (piperacillin) combined with a ß-lactamase inhibitor (tazobactam). We have noted an increased rate of suspected piperacillin/tazobactam-related adverse drug events (ADEs) compared to other antibiotics in patients on Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT). We sought to compare ADEs in patients who received piperacillin/tazoba...

Piperacillin-tazobactam is a broad spectrum antimicrobial agent that can cause false-positive results in the commercial Platelia Aspergillus EIA test. So far, no study has been performed in Latin America to evaluate the clinical implication of this finding. Here we studied the potential for galactomannan detection in piperacillin-tazobactam batches commercialized in the Brazilian market. Five b...

An open, non-comparative multicentre study was conducted at 36 sites in six countries to test the efficacy and safety of piperacillin/tazobactam in the therapy of lower respiratory tract infections. Piperacillin 4 g and tazobactam 500 mg were administered intravenously every 8 h for a minimum of five days. Two hundred and thirty patients were enrolled: 133 were evaluable for clinical efficacy a...

Acinetobacter baumannii is an important nosocomial pathogen usually in the context of serious underlying disease. Multidrug resistance in these organisms is frequent. The -lactamase inhibitors clavulanic acid, sulbactam, and tazobactam have intrinsic activity against Acinetobacter strains. To evaluate their potential therapeutic usefulness, we determined the in vitro activity of ampicillin, sul...