A study, published in The BMJ, examined the link between a penicillin allergy and the development of meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium difficile.
Researchers conducted a population-based matched cohort study in a United Kingdom-based general practice from 1995 to 2015. They examined 301,399 adults without previous MRSA or C. diff diagnoses enrolled in the Health Improvement Network database, of which 64,141 had a penicillin allergy and 237,258 comparators matched on age, sex and study entry time.
The study shows that during a mean follow-up of six years, the adults with penicillin allergy and matched comparators, 1,365 developed MRSA and 1,688 developed C. diff.
Among patients with penicillin allergy, the adjusted hazard ratio was 1.69 for MRSA and 1.26 for C. diff. Additionally, the adjusted incidence rate ratios for antibiotic use among patients with penicillin allergy were 4.15 for macrolides, 3.89 for clindamycin and 2.10 for fluoroquinolones.
"Systematically addressing penicillin allergies may be an important public health strategy to reduce the incidence of MRSA and C. difficile among patients with a penicillin allergy label," study authors concluded.