Antibiotics Manual: A Guide to commonly used antimicrobials 2nd Edition

Book Preface

We are pleased to present the Second Edition of our book. The development of new antimicrobials since the First Edition has been explosive, necessitating the addition of 36 new chapters, comprising new antiretroviral, anti-HCV, antimycobacterial, antifungal and antibacterial drugs and combinations. All the older chapters have been updated as necessary, and new tables have been added that highlight salient antimicrobial toxicities and indicate potential specific coverage of difficult pathogens.

As with the First Edition, we intend this book to fill an important particular niche in the clinician’s arsenal: it is a compilation of individual brief chapters, each dedicated to a specific antimicrobial. The final chapter of formulas, equations, and useful definitions now also includes the toxicity and coverage tables mentioned above. Each antimicrobial chapter lists the drug’s class, mechanism of action, mechanism of resistance, metabolic route, indications and off‐label uses, pertinent toxicities, significant drug interactions, and dosage for routine and special populations. The emphasis of this book is not on recommendations for specific organisms or clinical syndromes; rather, it is a compendium of clinically helpful information about available antimicrobials.

We have included the FDA‐approved indications as they exist currently; additional off‐label uses are also included. For many agents, the toxicities and drug interactions are numerous and complex; frequently, the clinician must research several sites or even multiple locations in the drug label itself to identify significant toxicities. We have tried to organize the most frequent and important toxicities and drug interactions in a convenient, user‐friendly format. Dosage information includes the special populations of renal failure, hepatic dysfunction, and pediatrics, and each chapter concludes with a list of clinical pearls, adding practical tips to the preceding discussion. When possible, we have used the official drug label as a primary source of information, supplemented by the various print and electronic sources in the References; further details may be sought in these resources.

In addition to FDA‐approved indications, we have also listed off‐label uses of selected agents; further, since many of the antiparasitic drugs are difficult to acquire in the United States, we have supplied relevant contact information for the CDC or compounding pharmacies, when appropriate.

The primary table of contents lists the antimicrobials alphabetically by brand name followed by the generic name; this is followed by a second table of contents, which lists the antimicrobials by generic name followed by the brand name. Thus, drug information is conveniently accessed via both brand and generic names. The chapter on formulas, definitions, and equations provides classifications for liver disease, formulas for computing creatinine clearance and body surface area, and a discussion of the varied terminology for continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). This is followed by tables of individual types of drug toxicity and specific antimicrobial–organism coverage for selected and challenging organisms. We hope this book will help the clinician navigate – in a convenient and clinically useful format – the increasingly complex details of antimicrobial prescribing.

We gratefully acknowledge the vision and expertise of Claire Bonnett, Deirdre Barry, Teresa Netzler, M.R. Shobana, Patricia Bateson, and Sonali Melwani.

David Schlossberg, MD, FACP, FIDSA, FCPP
Rafik Samuel, MD, FACP, FIDSA, FCPP