Linezolid for the treatment of infections caused by Gram-positive pathogens in China

In this randomised, double-blind, comparator-controlled, multicentre study conducted in China, 142 hospitalised patients aged 18–75 years with pneumonia (n = 80) or complicated skin and soft-tissue infection (cSSTI) (n = 62) due to suspected or known Gram-positive pathogens were randomised (1:1) to receive either linezolid 600 mg (n = 71) or vancomycin 1 g in patients aged ≤60 years or 0.75 g in patients aged >60 years (n = 71) intravenously every 12 h. The duration of treatment was 10–21 days for patients with pneumonia and 7–21 days for patients with cSSTI. Clinical outcomes were assessed at end-of-treatment (EOT) visit and follow-up (FU) visit 7–28 days post therapy. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common pathogen at baseline and most of these isolates were resistant to meticillin. All isolates were susceptible to linezolid and vancomycin. For the evaluable patients, the effective treatment rate for linezolid was higher than that for vancomycin at EOT (86.9% (53/61) vs. 61.7% (37/60)) and at FU (83.1% (49/59) vs. 64.9% (37/57)). Pathogen eradication rates for the microbiologically evaluable patients at FU were 79.2% (42/53) for linezolid and 61.5% (32/52) for vancomycin. The incidence of drug-related adverse events (AEs) was 25.4% (18/71) for linezolid and 16.9% (12/71) for vancomycin. Four (5.6%) linezolid-treated and eight (11.3%) vancomycin-treated patients discontinued the study drug because of an AE. Linezolid was well tolerated and effective for the treatment of infections caused by Gram-positive pathogens, including meticillin-resistant S. aureus.