Fidaxomicin more cost effective than vancomycin in patients with cancer infected with clostridium difficile

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to new research presented at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC 2014), patients with cancer who become infected with clostridium dificile would save about €5,600 per patient if treated with fidaxomicin compared with vancomycin, the current standard of care.

Clostridium dificile infection (CDI) can often present in patients received chemotherapy. In addition, those with solid cancers can be more susceptible to CDI than those with liquid tumors due to longer hospital admissions and increased antibiotic exposure and anti-cancer agents. When antibiotics alter a patient's gut flora and destroy many bacteria that live in the gut, clostridium dificile is given the chance to multiply and cause infection, thus causing diarrhea requiring antibiotics with gram-positive anaerobic coverage.

The most common agents used to treat CDI are metronidazole, oral vancomycin, and fidaxomicin, but treatment depends on severity of the infection. Multiple courses of oral vancomycin can be expensive for patients, and this decision-tree analysis demonstrates that fidaxomicin for the treatment of CDI in patients with cancer can reduce healthcare spending while maintaining effectiveness compared with vancomycin.