• Question: What are the most useful antibiotics created since penicillin ?

    Asked by julien.l to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 18 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ceri Dare

      Ceri Dare answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      That depends – different antibiotics are useful for different things. But the antibiotics we tend to use in my hospital when nothing else works are called carbapenems. Some bacteria are even resistant to carbapenems, in which case sadly the patient often dies.

    • Photo: Robert Hampson

      Robert Hampson answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      Methicillin, cephalosporins and carbapenems are developments of penicillin. Generally, they kill a lot of different types of bacteria and they are able to avoid some of the ways bacteria became resistant to penicillin.
      Things like erythromycin are also very useful, especially in patients allergic to penicillin and other beta lactams (like those mentioned above). It has a different mechanism so bugs which are resistant to penicillin may well be killed by erythromycin. It also has a better ability than penicillins to kill stranger bacteria. It isn’t used quite so much these days as newer drugs have started to take its place.

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