Research In Brief
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Cook Spectrum: Cook's minocycline/rifampin-impregnated Spectrum central venous catheter is nearly twice as effective at preventing catheter-related bloodstream infections as catheters coated with chlorhexidine and silver sulfadiazine, according to results of a 46-month, head-to-head study presented by Craig Coopersmith, Washington University in St. Louis, at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Critical Care Congress in Nashville on Feb. 2. Results of a separate study, presented at the meeting by Spectrum's inventor, Issam Raad, University of Texas, showed that exchanging an infected central venous catheter for a Spectrum can quickly eliminate the existing infection in cancer patients. In the trial, 40 patients with infected central venous catheters had their catheters exchanged for the Spectrum, and 80 patients simply had their infected catheters removed. 95% of patients receiving the Spectrum had no bacteremia within 72 hours with no cases of relapse or infection-related death. By comparison, 88% of patients whose catheters were simply removed had no bacteremia within 72 hours, and there were six cases of relapse or infection-related death in the catheter-removal group
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