Epistle

Abstract

While working in a neonatal intensive care setting, I often come across a heavy burden of infections and frequent use of antibiotics. Although there is established guidance for how common antibiotics such as aminoglycosides should be prescribed, administered and monitored, challenges remain about how to facilitate intravenous access for drug delivery in newborns. The actual administration of antibiotics in neonatal and paediatric patients is often more complex than it seems. The delivery kinetics of medications especially for drugs with narrow therapeutic window like aminoglycosides are not well studied. This leads to difficulties in accurately determining the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic drug relationships. In our medicine update section, Abigail Manning and Anna Burgess presents a concise literature review which compares methods of administration of aminoglycosides using intravenous injection vs intravenous infusion in the paediatric setting …