One Infusion of Oritavancin Is Effective for Some Patients With Bacterial Skin, Skin Structure Infections

A 3-hour infusion of oritavancin is effective for some patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections, according to a study presented here on June 16 at ASM Microbe 2016.

In the phase 4, retrospective observational study, 90.2% of patients achieved clinical success with the single treatment compared with a 77.4% success rate with standard of care (SoC), which usually includes daily therapy with a variety of antibiotics, usually lasting 1 week or more (P = .134).

"This analysis suggests that oritavancin is an optimal option for use...in treating patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections," reported Patrick Anastasio, DO, Emerald Coast Infectious Diseases Medical Group, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and colleagues in their poster presentation.

In addition to clinical success, the researchers also reported that the cure rate in patients treated with oritavancin was 73.2% compared with a cure rate of 48.4% for patients treated with SoC (P = .032).

The duration of treatment with oritavancin was 1 day -- a 3.1-hour infusion -- compared with 7.2 days of treatment with SoC (P < .001).

The study included 59 patients who were treated with oritavancin and 59 patients who were treated with vancomycin, daptomycin, dalbavancin or other antibiotics. The average age of the patients in the study was 64.6 years and 57.6% were female. All patients were treated between August 2014 and June 2015.

Almost all patients in the study -- 93.2% -- had more than 1 comorbidity (62.7% had hypertension, 44.9% had hyperlipidaemia, and more than 30% had diabetes).

"The efficacy findings from this study not only confirm well-controlled randomised clinical trial results but also explore the effectiveness of oritavancin in real-world use, particularly in physician-owned infusion centres," the authors concluded.

Funding for this study was provided the Medicines Company.

ASM Microbe 2016 is an inaugural meeting of the American Society for Microbiology that combines its annual general meeting with the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).