Bucks Saving Strategies For LY294002
We did not consider further treatment, because it might have been influenced by patients�� responses to previous treatment (clinical failure, success or persistence of bacteraemia). The analysis of definitive treatment was restricted to patients alive at day 7. All patients are included in the analysis of empirical antibiotic treatment. The outcome considered was 30-day all-cause mortality for empirical antibiotic treatment. For definitive treatment, we assessed 90-day mortality, as in previous studies [2,3], considering that the definitive antibiotic regimen was usually continued for 2�C4?weeks. To examine risk factors for death and to compare between study groups we collected a large dataset of variables pertaining to patient demography (including place of infection acquisition and functional LY294002 supplier status), background conditions, risk factors specific for staphylococcal bacteraemia (indwelling catheters and other devices, invasive procedures, etc.), clinical presentation, source of bacteraemia and severity of sepsis, laboratory measurements on the day of blood culture collection and infection management (including removal of foreign devices). All data were obtained through patient chart review and the electronic hospital records. Mortality data were derived from the Israeli Internal Ministry registry. Hospital-acquired infection was defined when blood cultures were taken 48?h or more after admission and healthcare-associated infections were defined as previously suggested [4]. All antibiotic treatment from the date of blood culture collection Selleck Lapatinib until 30?days was recorded. Staphylococci were identified using the Slidex-Staph Kit (bioMerieux, France), the Pastorex Staph (Sanofi Diagnostics, Pasteur) slide agglutination test confirmed by DNase or the API-Staph test (bioMerieux, France). Antibiotic susceptibility was tested using the disk diffusion method on Mueller�CHinton agar, according to contemporaneous NCCLS or CLSI standards. We considered all beta-lactam-beta-lactamase combinations, cephalosporins and carbapenems as covering, regardless S6 Kinase of susceptibility testing. Penicillin derivatives (e.g. piperacillin and mezlocillin) were considered covering only if the isolate was susceptible to penicillin or if the antibiotic was tested and found covering. To identify the risk factors for death we compared dichotomous variables using a chi-square test and continuous variables using a t-test or the Mann�CWhitney U-test, as appropriate. To exclude variables with high co-linearity from the multivariate analysis, variables significantly associated with 30-day mortality on univariate analysis were assessed for bivariate correlation using Spearman��s �� test. We excluded from further analysis significantly correlated variables (p?
