Link to Pubmed [PMID] – 18461139
PLoS ONE 2008;3(5):e2089
Despite increasingly frequent bacterial resistance to antibiotics, antibacterial innovation is rare. Ketolides constitute one of the very few new antibiotic classes active against Streptococcus pneumoniae developed during the last 25 years. Their mechanism of action resembles that of macrolides, but they are unaffected by common resistance mechanisms. However, cross-resistance to ketolides has been observed in some macrolide-resistant strains. We examined how new antibiotic exposure may affect overall pneumococcal resistance patterns in the population. The aims of this study were to assess the potential dissemination of newly emerged resistances and to control the selection of strains already multiresistant to existing antimicrobials.