Telavancin Effective for MRSA, MSSA Pneumonia
NASHVILLE, TENN. — The investigational antibiotic telavancin was equally effective against both methicillin-resistant and methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus in patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia, Dr. G. Ralph Corey wrote in a poster presented at the annual congress of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
Telavancin effected high cure rates across a range of minimum inhibitory concentrations, “suggesting that higher minimum inhibitory concentration rates or resistance to beta-lactams did not affect response to telavancin,” wrote Dr. Corey of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
Dr. Corey and his colleagues presented a subanalysis of two phase III randomized clinical trials, Comparison of Telavancin and Vancomycin for Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia Due to Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (ATTAIN) 1 and ATTAIN 2. The studies assigned 1,532 patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia to either telavancin (10 mg/kg intravenously every 24 hours) or vancomycin standard treatment for 7-21 days.
Dr. Corey's analysis focused on 243 patients in the telavancin arm who were microbiologically evaluable. The patients' mean age was 61 years, and 18% had an Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score of 20 or higher.
The researchers examined clinical cure rates at three minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values: 0.25 mcg/mL or less, 0.5 mcg/mL, and 1 mcg/mL. Overall, the clinical cure rate exceeded 80% in patients infected with either methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) or methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA).
For patients with MRSA, the cure rate was 82% at the lowest MIC, 91% at 0.5 mcg/mL, and 100% at the highest MIC. For patients with MSSA, the clinical cure rate was 88% at the lowest MIC and 91% at 0.5 mcg/mL. There were no data for the highest MIC.
In the clinically evaluable population from ATTAIN 1 and ATTAIN 2 combined, the clinical cure rate with telavancin treatment was 83%, compared with 81% for vancomycin.
The analysis, and the ATTAIN studies, were sponsored by Astellas Pharma Inc. and Theravance Inc. Dr. Corey was the primary investigator on both ATTAIN trials.
