Commonly found in the environment, Staphylococcus aureus bacteria are the leading cause of bloodstream infection and infection at surgical sites, among other problems. When the patients' immune systems are weakened by a disease or certain medical treatments (including surgery or receiving intravenous catheters) they become at a greater risk of infection.

These days, treatment of S. aureus infections has turned difficult because many strains have developed resistance to all penicillin-related antibiotics, the highly resistant strains - being methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), wherein the drug vancomycin has been the only consistently reliable treatment alternative.

However, MRSA strains with resistance to vancomycin have recently appeared, making these bacteria a growing threat to medical care throughout the world.

In an international clinical trial conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers, the effectiveness and safety of a new drug called daptomycin has been proven against bloodstream and heart infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

The said trial as basis, the USFDA has already approved daptomycin for the treatment of heart infections and bacteremia, also known as bloodstream infection or blood poisoning, caused by S. aureus.

According to Vance G. Fowler Jr., M.D., an associate professor of infectious diseases who participated in the study:

"This is the first new drug the FDA has approved in two decades for treating these types of potentially life-threatening infections.This advance adds a new weapon to our dwindling arsenal of antibiotics against these difficult-to-treat infections.

Daptomycin had been approved by the FDA in 2003 for treating skin infections caused by S. aureus. But until now, no one knew definitively whether the drug would be effective against the more serious bloodstream and heart infections."

The research study, funded by Cubist Pharmaceuticals (daptomycin's manufacturer) is published in the August 17, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Read more at Duke University Medical Center.