Antibiotics and Chemotherapeutic Drugs: Antimicrobial Agents and Their Clinical Applications

Author: [British] Francis O'Grady et al.
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2000-01-01
Features: This edition introduces remarkable advancements in the field of antimicrobial infection drug therapy over the past 30 years. This edition first adds a section, including an overview of antimicrobial infection drug therapy such as mechanisms of action, drug pharmacokinetics, drug interactions, and drug resistance, as well as clinical application guidelines such as the role of laboratories and antibiotic application strategies. Additionally, the previously tentative reference content on antiprotozoal and antihelminthic infections in earlier versions has been expanded into fully independent chapters, and these topics are also presented as separate chapters in the clinical treatment section. Moreover, the second part (Drug Section) and the third part (Clinical Treatment Section) of this edition maintain a structure similar to previous versions. In the second part, the basic characteristics of each drug class are introduced first, followed by the specific drugs within that class, as much as possible in the order of antimicrobial activity, drug resistance, pharmacokinetics, and clinical applications. The third part covers the treatment of various clinical infections, breaking some of the limitations of earlier versions that were limited to drug treatment principles, thus also discussing other therapeutic measures beyond drugs. To accommodate the rapidly growing importance, some topics that were only briefly introduced in earlier versions have been expanded into independent chapters in this edition, including abdominal and other surgical infections, infections associated with neutropenia and transplantation, infections in critically ill patients, infections related to grafts, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS, hepatitis, bone and joint infections, and fungal infections, among others.