Comparative Clinical Effectiveness and Toxicity of Vancomycin, Ristocetin, and Kanamycin

Abstract

Patients with severe staphylococcal infections that have not responded to the usual antimicrobial therapy are common in present-day hospital practice. It is hoped that the data to be presented regarding the relative efficacy and toxicity of ristocetin, vancomycin, and kanamycin will help the clinician to make a decision about further antimicrobial therapy for these patients. It was possible to alternate the use of ristocetin, vancomycin, and kanamycin in a group of seriously ill patients because the three drugs were discovered within such a short time of each other that no one of them had an opportunity to be established as "the drug of choice" in severe staphylococcic infections.^1-3 Each of these three antibiotics acted as a control for the others in the study, and this circumvented the necessity of extrapolating opinions regarding their effectiveness in severe infections from actual experience with milder, non-life-threatening infections. Materials and Methods Drugs. —Ristocetin