Infectious Disease Physician to Present on Antibiotic Resistance Associated with Antibiotic Impregnated Devices at SHEA Meeting

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Today, Issam I. Raad, MD, an infectious disease physician at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, will participate in a plenary session focusing on the pros and cons of using antimicrobial impregnated intravascular devices at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA)’s 18th annual scientific conference being held from April 5-8 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. “Controversies in Critical Care: Pro and Con” will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on April 8.

Dr. Elizabeth Ramos and Raad will present data demonstrating that after seven years of extensive use of the Cook Spectrum central venous catheter at their institution, including more than 500,000 catheter-days of catheter use, no resistance was noted with respect to minocycline and rifampin, the antibiotics impregnated in the Spectrum catheters. In fact, the rate of resistance to tetracylines and rifampin significantly decreased. The investigators say this data disproves the commonly held belief that antimicrobial impregnated devices raise the rates of antibiotic resistance in patients and provides statistics in support of these findings. These statistics and findings will be available to the public after the presentation.

SHEA provides a forum for dissemination of the latest information on new and emerging issues, including cost-effective infection control, problematic outbreaks, as well as discussion on topics such as antibiotic resistance, advances in epidemiologic methods and hand hygiene.

Source: Cook Medical