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Re: GYN: Antibiotics Linked To Breast Cancer? From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com) Thu Feb 19 07:05:30 2004 Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ] Next message: Braun, R. Daniel: "female OB's/ Operative deliveries." Previous message: strahimir banovic: "vermox" In reply to: Joanne Bulley, MD: "Re: GYN: Antibiotics Linked To Breast Cancer?" In a related story - Taking Guesswork Out of Antibiotics Blood test can help doctors determine need, eliminate overuse THE ASSOCIATED PRESS February 19, 2004 London - A blood test could help doctors determine whether antibiotics are needed for common respiratory infections and may reduce the over-prescribing that creates drug-resistant germs, new research suggests. About 75 percent of all antibiotics are given for lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Most of these infections are caused by a virus, not bacteria. Experts say antibiotics are not only useless against viral infections, but also help bacteria evolve defenses against drugs. The new test, described this week in The Lancet medical journal, measures blood levels of a chemical marker that is elevated in bacterial infection. It yields results within an hour. "This looks very promising," said Roy Anderson, an expert on antibiotic resistance at Imperial College in London. "Cutting the overuse of antibiotics is crucial to combating antibiotic resistance." Anderson, who was not connected with the study, said current tests are too expensive and cumbersome to be practical for use by family doctors. "What you want eventually is a kind of quick and easy dipstick test that can tell you right away. It needs refining, but something like this could evolve into a dipstick where it turns one color for a positive and another color for a negative," he said. The study involved 243 patients at the University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland. Once test results were known, antibiotic prescriptions dropped almost in half. "Importantly, withholding antibiotic treatment was safe and did not compromise clinical and laboratory outcome," the study concluded. Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine, said the study convinced him the marker may help doctors, but larger studies are needed. The danger of missing a severe or progressing bacterial infection is too great to rely solely on the blood test, Siegel said. "You worry about antibiotic resistance, but you also worry about patients dying," he said. http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsanti193677493feb19,0,1543119,print.story?coll=ny-health-headlines Art At Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Joanne Bulley, MD wrote: > >Yup ... we have a fair number of "don't give me anitibiotics - just >give me something homeopathic or holistic" folks up here. We also have >the "give me antibiotics even if I don't need it" as well. > >I, too, hope this will help us with those that try to demand >antibiotics. > >I can only imagine the situation you describe with the woman and her >family. My condolences. > >Joanne > >At Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Anna Meenan, MD wrote: >> >>Just curious, Joanne. Have you ever actually had anyone refuse >>antibiotics when they were recommended? If so, what were the >>circumstances? I don't believe I ever have. I'm kinda hoping against >>hope that the lay press around this study will convince some folks not >>to insist on antibiotics for every little sniffle. I recently took care >>of my first patient with a staph osteomyelitis resistant to EVERYTHING, >>and the looks on the family's faces when we told them we had absolutely >>nothing to give her and she was going to die, well, I hope I don't have >>to see those looks again anytime soon. Very frightening. >> >>-- >> Anna Meenan, MD >> >-- >Joanne Bulley, MD >Keene, NH, USA > >----- >"It is easier to understand a nation by listening to >its music than by learning its language" -Anonymous > -- art fougner, md ich bin ein New Yorker Next message: Braun, R. Daniel: "female OB's/ Operative deliveries." Previous message: strahimir banovic: "vermox" In reply to: Joanne Bulley, MD: "Re: GYN: Antibiotics Linked To Breast Cancer?"

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