Indiscriminate and Irrational Antibiotic Use

Dear Friends

Its ironic to see the current situation which we all are dealing with. With so much of irrational, indiscriminate and unjustified use of antibiotics, the coming era looks frightening. Abuse of antibiotics with no drug regulation authority over the quality check and the over the counter easy availability has led to the difficult situation to deal with menace of MRSA, VRE, ESBL including MDR Pseudomonas,Acinetobacter and so on.

Have we given thought what will be the future when very less research on new molecules is taking place. Isn't it the high time when we join hands to curb this pandemic of MDR organisms due to antibiotic abuse.

Think before  prescribing the antibiotic and try to check the abuse in the surroundings. Hope we give blossoming future for the generations to come.

MRSA: Are older antibiotics effective?

MRSA is a havoc and difficult to treat. Options are Vancomycin, Linezolid and Teicoplanin. There is a recent study by Goldberg E etal although retrospective cohort; published ahead of print in J antimicrob Chemother. 2010 May 27, PMID: 20507860. 

"Co-trimoxazole versus vancomycin for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia: a retrospective cohort study."

It explores the role of Co-trimoxazole in MRSA. Its showed that co-trimoxazole had a safety and efficacy profile similar to that of vancomycin and may offer an attractive additional therapeutic option for MRSA bacteraemia with further prospective trials required.

This means with increasing resistance to higher antibiotics, the sensitivity pattern is moving to the class of antibiotics which are not in much use. This nonexposure to these antibiotics reduce the selection of bacteria hence resistance against that antibiotic.

ECG Learning Sites

These are some websites for learning ECG and testing knowledge too.

http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/ecg/index.html
http://www.emedu.org/ecg/ 
http://www.ecglibrary.com/ecghome.html 
http://www.cvphysiology.com/Tutorials/Tutorial%20-%20ECG.htm

Difficult Airway Management

Difficult Airway is the scenario which is a nightmare for anyone in Intensive Care Unit. There are many algorithms, guidelines and techniques to tackle the problem. How one face the problem at the time of need is important. Hence friends come out with your experiences and suggestions regarding the same. 

LASIX : How Much Safe?

I am an 87-year -old man with pneumonia and sepsis laying in a hospital bed, feeling rather miserable. Two days ago one of your paramedics gave me Lasix believeing the junky sounds in my lungs were a sign of pulmonary edema. He was wrong. As a consequence my blood pressure dropped from 170/90 at my house to 90/40 in the ED where they gave me two liters of fluid in addition to several very strong antibiotics, and I am told my kidneys are not functioning so well. I know I am old and approaching the end of my life, but I was once a vibrant man who taught school for many years and often demonstrated for various causes such as civil rights and against the slaughter of baby seals. If I were able, I would make a sign and demonstrate in front of your house. I would lean against my walker and hold my sign up for passing cars and the news cameras to see. “Stop the Horror! Ban Lasix!” I know I am not the first victim. I wish to be the last. Those of us with pneumonia and sepsis are sick enough without Lasix making us worse.
Respectively
Patient X.

This concern was voiced by an patient.Does this situation sounds familiar? Dear Friends how about your views regarding use and misuse of Lasix!!