A new study found that an antibiotic commonly used for skin infections, UTIs, and acne is “associated with an increased risk of respiratory failure.” CIDRAP has the news.
The study found that “the risk of a hospital visit with acute respiratory failure was nearly three times higher in healthy 10- to 25-year-olds who received trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) than those who received either amoxicillin or cephalosporin antibiotics.” TMP-SMX is marketed under the brand names Bactrim and Septra.
The case reports that led to this study being undertaken prompted the FDA to “place a warning label in 2021 on oral and injection formulations of Bactrim and Septra that advises medical providers to watch for reports of cough, shortness of breath, or rapid, shallow breathing.”
The researchers involved in the study “compared outcomes in 575,218 patients who received TMP-SMX versus amoxicillin.” The primary outcome – “30-day risk of a hospital visit with acute respiratory failure” – occurred in “15 patients (0.03%) in the TMP-SMX group and 49 (0.01%) in the amoxicillin group.” In adolescents and young adults, the primary outcome occurred in 17 patients in the TMP-SMX arm (0.03%) and three in the cephalosporin arm (0.01%).
The authors theorize that a small subset of patients may be genetically predisposed to developing acute respiratory failure on TMP-SMX, but there may be other explanations. They caution against inferring causality from the study before the findings are replicated with further research.
