Unnecessary use of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in hospitalized patients

BMC Infectious Diseases

Table 3 Adverse Events Associated with Unnecessary Fluoroquinolone Antimicrobial Therapy

Adverse Event	All Unnecessary Regimens (n = 70)	*Unnecessary monotherapy regimens (n = 45)	Necessary Regimens with Unnecessary Days of Therapy (n = 50)
GI symptoms	8 (11)	4 (9)	9 (18)
Resistant organism colonization or infection	6 (9)	1 (2)	7 (14)
Clostridium difficile infection	0	0	3 (6)
Candida infection	1 (1)	1 (2)	5 (10)
Allergy	2 (3)	0	0
Renal complications	1 (1)	1 (2)	0
Phlebitis	1 (1)	0	0
Other	1 (1)	0	0

Data are presented as number of regimens (percent). * = unnecessary monotherapy regimens are the subset of all unnecessary fluoroquinolone regimens that included only a fluoroquinolone. Resistant organism colonization or infection refers to fluoroquinolone-resistant gram-negative bacilli, vancomycin resistant enterococci, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from a patient with no previous cultures positive for those organisms. Allergy refers to an allergic reaction (e.g., rash) possibly attributable to fluoroquinolone therapy. The single adverse event that was listed in the other category was hematologic adverse effect.

ISSN: 1471-2334