I read with interest Donald Farquhar's summary1 of a recently published article on the risk of hemolytic-uremic syndrome after antibiotic treatment of Escherichia coli infections.2 I was a bit perplexed by Farquhar's last sentence: “The findings of this study strongly suggest that these drugs should be withheld in children with acute diarrheal illness until stool cultures confirm growth of an organism for which antibiotic therapy is indicated (e.g., Campylobacter pylori).”
Did Farquhar mean Campylobacter jejuni? Campylobacter pylori has been renamed Helicobacter pylori. It does not cause a diarrheal illness, nor is it routinely grown from stool cultures.
Signature
Marc Romney
Department of Medical Microbiology St. Paul's Hospital Vancouver, BC
References
- 1.Farquhar D. E. coli, antibiotics and hemolytic-uremic syndrome in children. CMAJ 2000; 163(4):438. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- 2.Wong CS, Jelacic S, Habeeb RL, Watkins SL, Tarr PI. The risk of hemolytic-uremic syndreome after antibiotic treatment of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infections. N Engl J Med 2000; 342:1930-6. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]