Outcomes and metrics for antimicrobial stewardship: survey of physicians and pharmacists.

We conducted a survey to compare antimicrobial stewardship outcomes considered to be most important with those used in practice as metrics. Respondent opinion of important outcomes compared with those collected as metrics were antimicrobial use (15% vs 73%), antimicrobial cost (10% vs 73%), appropriateness of antimicrobial use (56% vs 51%), infection-related mortality rate (34% vs 7%), and antibiotic-associated length of stay (22% vs 12%). Patient outcomes are important to many practitioners but are rarely used as metrics.

Effect of antacids on the pharmacokinetics of raltegravir in human immunodeficiency virus-seronegative volunteers.

Raltegravir's divalent metal ion chelating motif may predispose the drug to interactions with divalent cations. We determined whether a divalent cation-containing antacid interacted with raltegravir. Twelve HIV-1-seronegative subjects were enrolled in this randomized, prospective, crossover study of single-dose raltegravir (400 mg) with and without an antacid. Subjects underwent two intensive pharmacokinetic visits in the fasted state separated by a 5- to 12-day washout period. With simultaneous antacid administration, time to peak raltegravir concentration occurred 2 h sooner (P = 0.002) and there was a 67% lower raltegravir concentration at 12 h postdose (P < 0.0001) than with administration of raltegravir alone. The raltegravir area under the-concentration-time curve from 0 to 12 h and maximum concentration were unchanged with the addition of an antacid. Studies are needed to determine the clinical relevance of this interaction, whether it remains after multiple dosing to steady state, whether it is mitigated by temporal separation, and whether raltegravir interacts with divalent cation-containing vitamins, supplements, or foods.