'Forgotten' antibiotic recovered for resistant bacterial infections

The results make it possible to expand the treatment options for infections for which few alternatives exist, while at the same time helping to avoid increasing resistance to the usual drugs. To this end, the study looked at the safety and efficacy of intravenous fosfomycin, an old "forgotten" antibiotic, as a possible treatment for bacterial infections resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics.

The study was carried out between June 2014 and December 2018 and involved 22 Spanish hospitals. Now the results are being published are analyzing the data collected over that period. The findings are based on the analysis of 143 adult patients with invasive urinary tract infection by multidrug-resistant strains of E. coli.

The impact of these results lies in being a possible substitute for the "last resort" antibiotics currently used, which may help to prevent the overuse of these antibiotics causing more resistance. As such, the renewed use of fosfomycin, whose effectiveness has been shown, is excellent news for patients concerned. The study also revealed that there are risk groups for whom this drug is not recommended, namely patients over 80 years of age or patients with heart failure.

The trial was conducted in conjunction with the Spanish Network for Research in Infectious Pathology. It has been published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the main authors being Dr. Jesús Sojo, Dr. Inmaculada López-Hernández, Dr. Álvaro Pascual and Dr. Jesús Rodríguez Baño of the Hospital Virgen Macarena.