French national cohort of first use of dalbavancin: A high proportion of off-label use.

Dalbavancin is a glycopeptide antibiotic with a long half-life, recently marketed in Europe for skin and soft-tissue infections (SSTIs), but its real-life use is not well known. The aim of this study was to describe all first prescriptions in France over an 16-month period. A retrospective study on all adult patients receiving at least one dose of dalbavancin from 1 June 2017 to 31 September 2018 was performed (75 patients from 29 French hospitals). Data were collected via a standard questionnaire. Failure was defined as persistence or reappearance of signs of infection, and/or switch to suppressive antibiotic treatment, and/or death from infection. The main indications were bone and joint infection (BJI) (64.0%), endocarditis (25.3%), and SSTI (17.3%). The main bacteria involved were Staphylococcus aureus (51.4%), including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) (19.4%), and coagulase-negative staphylococci (44.4%). Median minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for staphylococci to vancomycin and dalbavancin ranged from 0.875-2.0 mg/L and 0.032-0.064 mg/L, respectively. Dalbavancin was used after a mean of 2.3 ± 1.2 lines of antimicrobial treatment. The main treatment regimens for dalbavancin were a two-dose regimen (1500 mg each) in 38 cases (50.7%) and a single-dose regimen (1500 mg) in 13 cases (17.3%). Overall, at the patient's last visit, clinical cure was observed in 54/68 patients, whilst failure was observed in 14/68 patients. First use of dalbavancin in France was mostly off-label. Most were due to BJI, often as rescue therapy for severe infections. Even in off-label situations, dalbavancin appears safe and effective.

Predictive value of daily living score in acute respiratory failure of COPD patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Mechanical ventilation (MV) is imperative in many forms of acute respiratory failure (ARF) in COPD patients. Previous studies have shown the difficulty to identify parameters predicting the outcome of COPD patients treated by invasive MV. Our hypothesis was that a non specialized score as the activities daily living (ADL) score may help to predict the outcome of these patients. METHODS: We studied the outcome of 25 COPD patients admitted to the intensive care unit for ARF requiring invasive MV. The patients were divided into those weaning success (group A n = 17, 68%) or failure (group B n = 8, 32%). We investigated the correlation between the ADL score and the outcome and mortality. RESULTS: The ADL score was higher in group A (5.1 ±1.1 vs 3.7 ± 0.7 in group B, p < 0.01). Weaning was achieved in 76.5% of the cases with an ADL score ≥ 4 and in 23.5% of the cases with an ADL score < 4 (p < 0.05). Pulmonary function test, arterial blood gases collected during period of clinical stability and at admission and nutritional status were similar in both groups. The mortality, at six months, was 36%. The ADL score was a significant predictor of 6-month mortality (80 with an ADL score <4, 20 with an ADL score ≥4, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Our pilot study demonstrates that the ADL score is predictive of weaning success and mortality at 6 months, suggesting that the assessment of daily activities should be an important component of ARF management in COPD patients.