Decrease antibiotic resistance in intestinal micro organism with forgotten antibiotic

A forgotten antibiotic, temocillin, led to decrease collection of resistant micro organism than the usual remedy for febrile urinary tract an infection, in a research printed in The Lancet Infectious Ailments. Thus, temocillin could also be helpful in treating extreme urinary tract infections that give rise to fever, and contribute to a lowered unfold of resistant micro organism in hospitals.

The bacterial species Escherichia coli (E. coli) constitutes a big fraction of the traditional bacterial flora within the gut. But when E. coli will get into the fallacious locations within the physique, such because the blood or urinary tract, it might trigger critical sickness. E. coli is the commonest reason for urinary tract infections. These can typically be handled with antibiotics in pill kind, however some sufferers develop into so ailing that they should be admitted to hospital and handled with intravenous antibiotics.

“It has lengthy been customary process to make use of the antibiotic cefotaxime for such intravenous remedy. However as time has handed, an rising fraction of micro organism have develop into much less vulnerable to this antibiotic, each in Sweden and the remainder of the world, and this has made it mandatory to hunt an alternate,” says Håkan Hanberger, professor at Linköping College and marketing consultant in infectious ailments at Linköping College Hospital. He has been principal investigator and medically liable for the research.

The research now printed is the results of the Public Well being Company of Sweden being requested by the Swedish authorities to check how already present antibiotics can be utilized in one of the simplest ways. The researchers have investigated temocillin, a member of the penicillin group of antibiotics that has been recognized for a number of a long time. It’s utilized in another European nations, however shouldn’t be marketed in Sweden. Temocillin acts particularly in opposition to E. coli and different intestinal micro organism that may trigger urinary tract infections. It’s optimistic that temocillin doesn’t have a broad impact in opposition to many alternative micro organism, because it reduces the chance that the remedy will act in opposition to the traditional intestinal bacterial flora. This led the researchers to analyze whether or not temocillin provides much less resistance amongst intestinal micro organism than remedy with the usual antibiotic, cefotaxime.

They studied 152 sufferers with urinary tract an infection that gave rise to fever, also called pyelonephritis, that required intravenous antibiotics.

“We noticed clearly that the intestinal flora was much less affected within the group handled with temocillin. The principle cause for that is that temocillin provides much less collection of resistant intestinal micro organism,” says Charlotta Edlund, professor of microbiology and specialist investigator on the Public Well being Company of Sweden.

The scientific impact of temocillin was nearly as good as the usual remedy with cefotaxime, and the undesired results had been equal. The truth that temocillin is much less aggressive in opposition to the bacterial flora within the gut means that beginning to use this forgotten antibiotic for urinary tract infections could have benefits for each sufferers and society.

“The consequence will probably be that we see much less collection of resistant intestinal micro organism in hospitals, which can contribute to decreasing hospital-related infections from these micro organism,” says Håkan Hanberger.