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Letter to the Editor
Editor, – The editorial by Robert Moulds and Melanie Jeyasingham (Aust Prescr 2010;33:134-5) states that 'For ongoing directed gentamicin therapy, other monitoring recommendations remain unchanged'.
Could the authors kindly clarify this statement, that is, what other recommendations remain unchanged, and unchanged compared to what?
Grace Abdini Senior clinical pharmacist Pharmacy department Mount Druitt Hospital, NSW
Author's comments
Melanie Jeyasingham, an author of the article, comments:
Apart from plasma concentration monitoring, other monitoring recommendations for ongoing use of gentamicin remain unchanged from the previous recommendations in Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic, version 13 (2006). This includes recommendations to monitor serum creatinine and calculate creatinine clearance two or three times each week, or more frequently if renal function is very unstable. Patients should be regularly asked about any hearing or balance problems and told to report immediately if they occur. For prolonged aminoglycoside courses (more than 5 days), formal vestibular function testing and high-frequency audiometric testing should be considered if available.
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