The novel antibiotic Zyvox (linezolid injection, tablets and for oral suspension) may shorten hospital length of stay in patients with complicated skin and soft tissue infections caused by known or suspected methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to research published this week in the scientific journal Surgical Infections. An analysis of a subset of 230 patients from a Phase III clinical trial suggests that treatment with Zyvox may decrease patients' stay in the hospital by as many as 8 days, compared to the standard treatment, intravenous vancomycin.

Zyvox comes from the first new class of antibiotics -- the oxazolidinones -- to be introduced in 35 years. It can be used interchangeably between its IV and oral formulations, providing dosing convenience for physicians and patients. Zyvox is the only oral antibiotic approved by the Food and Drug Administration for hard-to-treat resistant infections like MRSA.

"Surgical patients are at an increased risk for skin and soft tissue infections that are increasingly being caused by resistant bacteria such as MRSA," said John Weigelt, professor and vice chairman, department of surgery, chief, division of trauma & critical care, Medical College of Wisconsin. "The availability of an oral agent, such as Zyvox, with efficacy against MRSA infections is a significant advance in the treatment of these patients. The oral form provides physicians with the option to get some patients home from the hospital sooner and also may decrease reliance on IV therapy, which can eliminate the risk of subsequent infections from catheterization."

The length of stay analysis consisted of 230 intent-to-treat patients with complicated skin and soft tissue infections as the primary site of their infections. A clinically evaluable sample of 144 patients and a surgical site infection subsample of 114 patients also were evaluated. Median length of stay for the intent-to-treat patients was 9 days for patients treated with Zyvox vs. 14 days for the vancomycin group (p=0.052), and 8 days vs. 16 days in the clinically evaluable subgroup (p=0.0025). Patients treated with Zyvox in the surgical site infection subgroup also tended to have a decreased length of hospital stay of 10 days vs. 14 days (p=0.29), although these results were not statistically significant.