Endocarditis: oral antibiotics

Oral Antibiotics Safe Stable Endocarditis

Switching after a period of IV antibiotics didn't raise event rates in POET trial

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• by Crystal Phend, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage TodayAugust 28, 2018
• This article is a collaboration between MedPage Today® and:
   

MUNICH -- Switching to oral antibiotics once an endocarditis patient is stable appears safe and could allow them to head home from the hospital sooner, the randomized Partial Oral Treatment of Endocarditis (POET) trial showed.

The group getting oral tablets after at least 10 days IV antibiotics had a 9.0% rate of all-cause mortality, unplanned cardiac surgery, embolic events, or relapse of bacteremia with the primary pathogen by 6 months after completion of treatment.

That rate was noninferior to the 12.1% in the IV-only antibiotic group (HR 0.72, P=0.40), Henning Bundgaard, MD, of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, reported here at the European Society of Cardiology meeting and simultaneously online in the New England Journal of Medicine.