Caitlin nearly died from golden staph. New research is turning treatment on its head

Treatment for golden staph is set to undergo a radical shake-up following landmark research that found a commonly used antibiotic carries a lower survival rate and elevated risk of severe side effects.

In a world-first clinical trial, an international team of researchers led by the Doherty Institute in Melbourne found the standard frontline antibiotic used for decades should no longer be the default treatment to fight the bug which kills more than 1000 Australians every year.

The trial, which monitored patients across more than 150 hospitals in 14 countries, including Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, showed that two existing alternative antibiotics are equally effective at curing the potentially deadly infection, and also significantly safer for patients.

As part of the research, patients across the world admitted to hospital with golden staph bloodstream infections were randomly assigned to receive either the traditional treatment of flucloxacillin antibiotic or one of two alternatives.

In two separate studies, researchers then tracked these patients over 90 days to compare survival rates, side effects, and impacts on major organs.

In the first study, they found that 20 per cent of patients treated with flucloxacillin suffered acute kidney damage, compared with only 14 per cent of those treated with its substitute, cefazolin.

Patients who took cefazolin also had a better chance of survival, with 15 per cent dying within 90 days compared to 17 per cent of those who received flucloxacillin.

Meanwhile, in the second study, patients treated with another alternative antibiotic, benzylpenicillin, experienced even better survival rates, with 14 per cent dying within 90 days compared with 22 per cent in the flucloxacillin patient group.

Researchers said the findings, which have been published in prestigious scientific journals The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, provided important new evidence that would guide treatment across the world.

Professor Steven Tong, an infectious diseases physician at the Doherty Institute and global co-lead investigator of the cefazolin research paper, said the findings had already changed the way he treated patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia, commonly known as golden staph.

At the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where Tong works, there are two cases of serious golden staph bloodstream infections every week.

“This has very much become our bread and butter because we see it all the time,” Tong said.

“I reflected what most Australian infectious disease physicians used to do, which