Piperacillin/tazobactam, sold under the brand name Zosyn among others, is a combination medication containing the antibiotic piperacillin and the β-lactamase inhibitor tazobactam. The combination has activity against many Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is used to treat pelvic inflammatory disease, intra-abdominal infection, pneumonia, cellulitis, and sepsis. It is given by injection into a vein.
Common adverse effects include headache, trouble sleeping, rash, nausea, constipation, and diarrhea. Serious adverse effects include Clostridium difficile infection and allergic reactions including anaphylaxis. Those who are allergic to other β-lactam are more likely to be allergic to piperacillin/tazobactam. Use in pregnancy or breastfeeding appears to generally be safe. It usually results in bacterial death through blocking their ability to make a cell wall.
Piperacillin/tazobactam was approved for medical use in the United States in 1993. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication.
Its main uses are in intensive care medicine (pneumonia, peritonitis), some diabetes-related foot infections, and empirical therapy in febrile neutropenia (e.g., after chemotherapy). The drug is administered intravenously every 6 or 8 hr, typically over 3–30 min. It may also be administered by continuous infusion over four hours. Prolonged infusions are thought to maximize the time that serum concentrations are above the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the bacteria implicated in infection.
Piperacillin-tazobactam is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as first-line therapy for the treatment of bloodstream infections in neutropenic cancer patients.
For β-lactam antipseudomonal antibiotics, including piperacillin/tazobactam, prolonged intravenous infusion is associated with lower mortality than bolus intravenous infusion in persons with sepsis due to Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
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Carbapenems are a class of very effective antibiotic agents most commonly used for the treatment of severe bacterial infections. This class of antibiotics is usually reserved for known or suspected multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections. Similar to penicillins and cephalosporins, carbapenems are members of the beta-lactam antibiotics drug class, which kill bacteria by binding to penicillin-binding proteins, thus inhibiting bacterial cell wall synthesis.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a type of lung infection that occurs in people who are on mechanical ventilation breathing machines in hospitals. As such, VAP typically affects critically ill persons that are in an intensive care unit (ICU) and have been on a mechanical ventilator for at least 48 hours. VAP is a major source of increased illness and death. Persons with VAP have increased lengths of ICU hospitalization and have up to a 20–30% death rate.
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