Bone and joint infections: are oral antibiotics safe and effective compared with intravenous antibiotics?

A UK multicentre trial including 1,054 adults with acute or chronic bone or joint infections found that using oral antibiotics in the first 6 weeks of treatment did not increase the risk of treatment failure within 1 year, compared with using intravenous antibiotics. People in the intravenous group experienced more intravenous catheter complications and had longer hospital stays than people in the oral group. There was no significant difference between the groups in the incidence of Clostridium difficile diarrhoea or the percentage of participants reporting serious adverse events. The potential for a difference in the longer-term outcomes of the 2 groups beyond the 1-year study duration warrants further work.
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news