Aerosolized antibiotics for treating hospital-acquired and ventilator-associated pneumonia

Abstract

Hospital-acquired pneumonia is a common complication that continues to have a poor cure rate in some patients with intravenous therapy alone. Aerosolized antibiotics are theoretically attractive in an attempt to optimize lung concentrations of antibiotics. Limited data suggest that aerosolized aminoglycosides or colistin in addition to intravenous therapy results in good response rates in patients with multidrug-resistant organisms or nonresponding pneumonia. Adverse events can occur, especially with colistin. When used, care should be taken to properly compound and administer aerosolized antibiotics to ensure tolerability and good drug delivery.

Keywords::

• aerosolization
• aerosolized antibiotics
• aminoglycosides
• colistin
• drug delivery
• hospital-acquired pneumonia
• multidrug-resistance
• nebulization
• ventilator-associated pneumonia

Financial & competing interests disclosure

G Christopher Wood has served as a consultant and investigator for Bayer (formerly under Nektar) in this field. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Notes

MMAD: Median mass aerodynamic diameter.

Data taken from [29,32,101].