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COPYRIGHT 2004 International Medical News Group
AUSTIN, TEX. -- What's the right choice in antimicrobial therapy for a boil or other non-life-threatening skin infection caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus?
"Dust off the old guys--tetracycline, Bactrim, and rifampin," Dr. James S. Evans urged at the annual spring meeting of the Texas Dermatological Society.
The vast majority of community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains remain exquisitely susceptible to these old, inexpensive, oral antimicrobial warhorses, said Dr. Evans, an infectious disease specialist in private practice in Austin, Tex.
The main thing to remember when the lab report for an uncomplicated skin infection comes back reading "MRSA," he said, is to avoid the all-too-common reflex of prescribing one of the much-hyped newer anti-MRSA agents such as Synercid (quinupristin/dalfopristin), an intravenous agent, or Zyvox (linezolid), an injectable agent also available in an oral formulation--at a cost of about $80 per day.
"Don't reach for Zyvox for everybody with MRSA.... It's an amazingly...
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