Vancomycin

Does Vancomycin work?

Yes, in large controlled trials and decades of use.

Vancomycin's use is backed by decades of clinical practice and by randomized trials in which it served as the standard-therapy comparator, including a 246-patient trial in Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection and endocarditis where daptomycin was tested against vancomycin or an antistaphylococcal penicillin. Grade A for the approved intravenous and oral uses. ¹²

Fowler and colleagues published the cited trial in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006. They randomized 246 patients who had Staphylococcus aureus in the blood, with or without endocarditis. Patients got daptomycin or standard therapy. For resistant strains, standard therapy was vancomycin. For susceptible strains, it was an antistaphylococcal penicillin. Each patient also got low-dose gentamicin at the start. Treatment succeeded at 42 days after therapy ended in 44.2 percent with daptomycin. It succeeded in 41.7 percent with standard therapy. That met the non-inferiority margin. The drug's role here is typical. New anti-MRSA drugs are measured against it. ¹

The oral approved use for C. difficile infection rests on the drug's long record. It also rests on two trials described in the Vancocin label. In them, 266 adults with C. difficile-associated diarrhea took oral vancomycin. The label also covers staphylococcal enterocolitis. It states that vancomycin given by vein does not work for either infection. ³

Read the full Vancomycin page

Reference information only, not medical advice. Drawn from the Vancomycin article, fact-checked against the cited sources. No dosing anywhere on this site.