introduction : conventional amphotericin b is one of the antifungal choices as prophylactic and empiric treatment against fungal infections in febrile neutropenic patients. however the time of initiation, dosing and monitoring of drug adverse effects must be justified to maximize the efficacy and minimize the toxicities of this antifungal agent. methods : we conducted a prospective observationa...

introduction : infections in neutropenic patients are considered as major causes of mortality and emergence of drug resistant gram positive bacterial infections are crucially important to be covered if indicated. vancomycin is active against most gram positive bacteria including methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa). in this study, we evaluated the appropriate utilization of this a...

BACKGROUND The urine lipoarabinomannan (LAM) strip-test (Determine®-TB) can rapidly rule-in TB in HIV-infected persons with advanced immunosuppression. However, given high rates of empiric treatment amongst hospitalised patients in high-burden settings (≈ 50%) it is unclear whether LAM can add any value to clinical decision making, or identify a subset of patients with unfavourable outcomes tha...

background: antibiotics prescribed in the presumptuous treatment of infections may be ineffective if causative pathogens acquire resistance to prescribed antibiotics. in the absence of patient follow ups for treatment outcome assessments, healthcare providers may be unaware of the effectiveness of antibiotic treatments they provide. in the empiric treatment of infections particularly, such situ...

background: drug utilization evaluation (due) studies are designed to evaluate and improve the rational use of medications. dues have focused on drugs used in high risk patients such as critically ill cases in this study. carbapenems are beta-lactam type antibiotics with broad-spectrum of activity which cover gram-positive, gram-negative and anaerobic bacteria. the heavy use of carbapenems (imi...

AIMS To assess the impact of blood culture results and early clinical liaison on the treatment of patients with bacteraemia. METHODS 123 patients with significant positive blood cultures were followed over a nine month period in a 620 bed teaching hospital. The impact of early blood culture reporting and clinical liaison on the cost and appropriateness of treatment was assessed. RESULTS Emp...

Gastroesophageal reflux disease is an important cause of morbidity in childhood. Although various diagnostic methods are available, short course of empiric treatment with a proton pump inhibitor is widely used in adults as a diagnostic test. Data about empiric treatment is scarce in children. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of empiric treatment of reflux-like symptoms in ...

Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) require rapid diagnosis and treatment. A decision-analytic model was used to estimate total costs and survival associated with a diagnostic-driven (DD) or an empiric treatment approach in neutropenic patients with hematological malignancies receiving chemotherapy or autologous/allogeneic stem cell transplants in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, and Guangzhou, the Pe...