Select Advances in Infectious Disease Chemotherapy: Review for Emergency Department Practitioners

We provide an overview of new chemotherapy agents for the treatment of bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic infections with indications, contraindications, and side effects for each. Some of them have been restricted for use only by subspecialists, possibly limiting emergency physicians' comfort with prescribing these medications. We also review some new and promising agents that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as of this writing. As new antibiotics are approved and widely used, postmarketing surveys uncover important findings with respect to the drugs' efficacy, drug interactions, and side effects. The fact that these agents are intended to definitively cure diseases which may in some cases prove lethal makes it imperative for clinicians to stay abreast of developments in infectious disease. Conversely, the fact that these medications are prescribed for limited periods of time in order to prove curative and to prevent the development of resistance poses financial challenges to the pharmaceutical industry. This article provides the emergency department clinicians with a summary of novel antimicrobials and their relevance to the practice of clinical and emergency medicine, as well as highlighting recent research into the topic.