New Antibiotic for Skin Infections

Usually affect hospital patients

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 17, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new type of antibiotic for the treatment of complicated skin infections that affect millions of patients each year.

The injected drug, marketed under the brand name Cubicin (daptomycin), is approved for the treatment, usually among hospitalized patients, of serious infections that involve the skin. These could include abscesses, post-surgical skin wound infections and skin ulcers.

Cubicin was approved after clinical studies with 1,400 patients showed it was safe and effective, and worked as well as existing drugs including vancomycin, oxacillin and nafcillin in the treatment of complicated skin and skin structure infections.

Its side effects include stomach upset, fever, headache, rash and dizziness, all of which are common, mild reactions patients often have to powerful antibiotics.

Here is the FDA Talk Paper describing the drug. To learn more about skin infections, visit the National Library of Medicine.

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