The Clinical Infection Research Group (CIRG), recently announced that the SNAP study (Staphylococcus Aureus Network Adaptive Platform), a landmark international clinical trial, has identified the optimal antibiotics for Staphylococcus (staph) Aureus bloodstream infection, a breakthrough that will change treatment for this life-threatening condition.
CIRG is a collaborative research organisation that brings together researchers from NHS Lothian, the University of Edinburgh, and other healthcare, academic, and industry partners.
The study includes sites from 8 countries globally with the potential to expand to other regions. Within the UK, 22 sites have joined the study, with Edinburgh as the only site in Scotland, enrolling significant numbers of patients suffering from this infection.
Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) is a leading cause of deadly blood infection, linked to more than a million deaths each year. More than half of staph blood infections lead to sepsis. The results from these studies have affected Scotland’s response to treating this important condition.
The SNAP trial, funded in the UK by the NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) found that a little used antibiotic, cefazolin, is as effective as and safer than the current UK standard therapy, flucloxacillin, for treating the condition.
The team also found that a commonly used antibiotic, penicillin, can be used when the staph is treatable with this in the laboratory. And that similarly this is probably as effective as flucloxacillin, and safer.
Dr Rebecca Sutherland, Principal Investigator for SNAP in Edinburgh said: “The SNAP study is helping infection specialists to optimise the treatment of this serious bloodstream infection. CIRG is continuing to recruit patients and there are more questions to answer, such as whether two antibiotics are better than one and how long should we treat the infection for. Seeing the results of the study so far, which has recruited over 6,000 patients globally, actually change clinical practice for the better is excellent.”
The findings were published in two papers published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.
