An economic evaluation of the Oral Versus Intravenous Antibiotics (OVIVA) trial published in Wellcome Open Research in July showed that treating bone and joint infections with oral antibiotics for the first six weeks could save the health service £17 million annually.

HEHTA's Nicola McMeekin, Andrew Briggs, Claudia Geue and their co-authors found that treating such infections ‘for the first six weeks of therapy with oral antibiotics is both less costly and does not result in detectable differences in quality of life compared to treatment with intravenous antibiotics’.

The article abstract states: ‘Bone and joint infections are becoming increasingly common and are usually treated with surgery and a course of intravenous antibiotics. However, there is no evidence to support the superiority of intravenous therapy and there is a growing body of literature showing that oral therapy is effective in treating these infections.’

The full article is available here.

First published: 14 March 2018

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