- A new antibiotic launched last year to spearhead the
battle against hospital superbugs has already faced its first defeat against
a resistant strain.
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- The drug, linezolid, is licensed in the UK for use in
patients who have developed serious illnesses, such as septicaemia, as
a result of bacterial infection resistant to existing drugs such as MRSA.
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- It was hailed as a breakthrough, particularly since the
emergence at Glasgow Royal Infirmary of a strain of staphylococcus resistant
to the last-ditch antibiotic, vancomycin.
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- But doctors in Chicago who used linezolid on five patients
suffering from infections caused by a vancomycin-resistant strain of enterococcus
faecium had also encountered resistance to the new drug. In every case,
linezolid was initially successful, but the enterococci eventually became
resistant, and in three cases the patients grew unresponsive to treatment.
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- Dr Ronald Gonzales and colleagues, reporting in the Lancet,
admitted that all five patients in their study - one who had undergone
surgery for an aortic aneurysm, and four organ transplant patients - had
received long courses of the drug, thereby increasing the chances of resistance.
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- But they recommended that samples of all vancomycin-resistant
enterococci should be tested for susceptibility before starting on linezolid.
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- A spokesman for the makers, Pharmacia, said last night:
"This was very much a last-gasp attempt to treat five very seriously
ill patients.
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- "We are still confident about the drug's role, which
is aimed at minimising the risk of widespread resistance."
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