Better way to treat abscesses: Add antibiotic to conventional approach

UCLA researchers have found that doctors can use a specific antibiotic in addition to surgically draining an abscess to give people a better chance of recovery. The discovery turns on its head the long-held notion that surgical drainage alone is sufficient for treating abscesses. The findings are particularly important because of the emergence of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which since 2000 has become the most common cause of skin infections — initially in the U.S. and now in many other parts of the world. The UCLA study will be published March 3 by the New England Journal of Medicine. “We found that adding in a specific antibiotic to the medical treatment also resulted in fewer recurring infections, fewer infections in other places on the body and fewer people passing on the infection to other members of the household,” said Dr. David Talan, the study’s lead author and a professor in the department of emergency medicine and department of medicine, division of infectious diseases, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Olive View–UCLA Medical Center. “This translates into fewer medical visits and reduced health care costs.” Reed Hutchinson/UCLA Dr. Gregory Moran In the U.S., emergency department visits for skin infections nearly tripled from 1.2 million to 3.4 million between 1993 and 2005, and the burden of such infections has continued since then. Most of the increase was due to a greater incidence of ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news