Implications of Plazomicin Approval for Patients with cUTI

Jason Gallagher, PharmD, clinical professor, Temple University School of Pharmacy, discusses the clinical implications of plazomicin for health care providers and patients.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

“If plazomicin is approved then it will be an addition to our armamentarium against resistant Enterobacteriaceae, specifically CRE. And what it will give us in addition to the 2 agents that have been recently approved that we also have. One is that it has a prospective study looking at it in CRE bloodstream infections. But the other is that is a non-beta-lactam. So, the other 2 agents that have recently been approved have both been beta-lactams, but what about patients that can’t tolerate them?

And so, here we have another agent that can be used instead of that or possibly even in addition to them. Something that clearly has not been studied and probably won’t be studied but is something that may start to happen in practice. Because now in practice we often use aminoglycosides as second antibiotics given in addition with beta-lactams.”