Antibiotic Therapy for Vibrio vulnificus Infection

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

To the Editor.— We read with interest your recent review of current research onVibrio vulnificus.1However, we are concerned that there are inadequate clinical data on antibiotic efficacy to support fully the recommendation that "physicians presented with a case ofV vulnificusinfection should use penicillin or tetracycline, since the bacterium is susceptible to most antibiotics.1These recommendations appear to be based on in vitro sensitivity data. In the absence of clinical confirmation of efficacy, such in vitro data can be misleading: to take a recent, well-publicized example, methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureusis sensitive in vitro to cephalosporins, but patients have no clinical response to these drugs. Unfortunately, the available clinical data onV vulnificusare sketchy, with the one published report of a series of cases noting only that "there was little difference between patients who died and those who survived in the types of antibiotics used."2