A panel of experts was convened by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) to update the 2004 clinical practice guideline on outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) [1]. This guideline is intended to provide insight for healthcare professionals who prescribe and oversee the provision of OPAT. It considers various patient features, infusion catheter issues, monitoring questions, and antimicrobial stewardship concerns. It does not offer recommendations on the treatment of specific infections. The reader is referred to disease- or organism-specific guidelines for such support.

During the past 3 decades, the combination of trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole has occupied a central role in the treatment of various commonly encountered infections and has also been particularly useful for several specific clinical conditions. However, changing resistance patterns and the introduction of newer broad-spectrum antibiotics have led to the need to carefully redefine the appropriate use of this agent in clinical practice. While trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole's traditional role as empirical therapy for several infections has been modified by increasing resistance, it remains a highly useful alternative to the new generation of expanded-spectrum agents if resistance patterns and other clinical variables are carefully considered. It also seems to have an increasing role as a cost-effective pathogen-directed therapy with the potential to decrease or delay development of resistance to newer antibiotics used for empirical treatment. In addition, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole continues to be the drug of choice for several clinical indications.

A panel of experts was convened by the Infectious Diseases Society of America to update the 2004 clinical practice guideline on outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) [1]. This guideline is intended to provide insight for healthcare professionals who prescribe and oversee the provision of OPAT. It considers various patient features, infusion catheter issues, monitoring questions, and antimicrobial stewardship concerns. It does not offer recommendations on the treatment of specific infections. The reader is referred to disease- or organism-specific guidelines for such support.

No abstract