Thursday, December 30, 2004
Get ready for single-dose antibiotics
Pfizer is getting single-dose Azithromycin ready for battle
They recently submitted a trio of studies to the FDA, aiming for indications in acute bronchitis, sinusitis, and pneumonia. The obvious benefit of increased compliance is cited:
"Single treatment is a major advance," commented Victor L. Yu, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Pittsburgh. "In the real world, compliance is an issue."As I have written before (see Fast-food antibiotics), it makes it that much easier for physicians to throw around broader-than-required spectrum antibiotics around with the magic wand of a single pill.
"Given the efficacy of a one-time dose and the assured compliance, the hope would be that this type of regimen can help minimize the emergence of antibiotic resistance," commented Michael Niederman, M.D., chairman of the department of medicine at Winthrop-University Hospital, Mineola, N.Y.
In the case of sinusitis, there are many studies suggesting that older generic, cheaper antibiotics are just as effective as the newer ones. However, you can be sure Pfizer will DTC market the hell out of the single-dose regimen ("Why take 20 pills, when you can take just one?"), leading to patients demanding these broader-than-needed antibiotics. And that is supposed to cut down on bacterial resistance?
Posted by Kevin |
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Comments:
interesting! i'll have to follow this. seems like we'll be prescribing even more antibiotics for colds than ever unfortunately.
What about compliance? I'm not sure I necessarily need a one dose antibiotic, but the Z-pak surely is more convenient than a 10 day course of any other antibiotic, not to mention that the sooner you finish an antibiotic, the sooner the undesired side effects go away (the ones that even mega-doses of acidophilus don't resolve, for example.) I didn't finish my last round of Augmentin because I simple couldn't deal with the side effects anymore.
Some people really do need a one-dose antibiotic. When taking antibiotics, I usually suffer naseau and indigestion to the point where I throw up numerous times on the second, third, and sometimes fourth day of taking antibiotics. Since I'm unable to keep much down (including yogurt or acidophilus pills), I suspect that the full dose of antibiotics doesn't get digested either. Therefore, a single dose ensures that I'm not throwing up all of the antibiotics, even if I still do get an upset stomach the day after I take it.
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