What's Next for CAMERA2?

Segment Description: Steven Tong, PhD, associate professor at the Doherty Institute and the Menzies School of Research, and presenter of the CAMERA2 study at ECCMID 2019, discusses the next steps for research on combination therapy for MRSA bacteremia.

Interview transcript (modified slightly for readability):

Contagion®: What is the next step in this line of research?

Steven Tong, PhD: "An obvious next step is not using flucloxacillin but another beta-lactam and, in this case, when we did a post-hoc analysis, it appeared that acute kidney injury is much more common with flucloxacillin than it was with cefazolin. Therefore, the next question in our mind is, "how [would] vancomycin plus cefazolin [fare]?"...Perhaps there won't be such a high rate of acute kidney injury and if we are able to reduce bacteremia again in that group, perhaps it will lead to better clinical outcomes at 90 days. Our aim is also to expand the scope of the trial so not just looking at MRSA bacteremia, but also MSSA bacteremia. I think a critical question that now exists is the comparison of cefazolin with anti-staphylococcal penicillins. Our study raises the issue, "does flucloxacillin cause more renal toxicity than does cefazolin?" And I think we should run that in a trial to determine if that is indeed the case.

The study, “Combination Antibiotic Therapy for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia: The CAMERA2 Randomized Controlled Trial,” was presented in an oral session on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, at ECCMID 2019 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.