Efficacy of High Doses of Daptomycin versus Alternative Therapies against Experimental Foreign-Body Infection by Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Since the currently approved dose of daptomycin (6 mg/kg of body weight/day) has been associated with clinical failures and resistance development, higher doses for some difficult-to-treat infections are being proposed. We studied the efficacy of daptomycin at high doses (equivalent to 10 mg/kg/day in humans) and compared it to that of reference and alternative treatments in a model of foreign-body infection with methicillin (meticillin)-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. In vitro studies were conducted with bacteria in the log and stationary phases. For the in vivo model, therapy with daptomycin at 100 mg/kg/day, vancomycin at 50 mg/kg/12 h, rifampin (rifampicin) at 25 mg/kg/12 h, or linezolid at 35 mg/kg/12 h was administered for 7 days. Antibiotic efficacy was evaluated using either bacteria from tissue cage fluids or those attached to coverslips. We screened for the emergence of linezolid- and rifampin-resistant strains and analyzed the surviving population from the daptomycin-treated group. Only daptomycin was bactericidal in both the log- and stationary-phase studies. Daptomycin (decrease in the log number of CFU per milliliter of tissue cage fluid, 2.57) and rifampin (decrease, 2.6 log CFU/ml) were better (P < 0.05) than vancomycin (decrease, 1.1 log CFU/ml) and linezolid (decrease, 0.9 log CFU/ml) in the animal model. Rifampin-resistant strains appeared in 60% of cases, whereas no linezolid resistance emerged. No daptomycin-resistant subpopulations were detected at frequencies of 10⁻⁷ or higher. In conclusion, daptomycin at high doses proved to be as effective as rifampin, and the two were the most active therapies for this experimental foreign-body infection. These high doses ensured a profile of safety from the development of resistance.Daptomycin is a lipopeptide drug with bactericidal activity toward methicillin (meticillin)-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a concentration-dependent manner (27, 32). It is currently approved for use at 4 mg/kg of body weight/day for skin and soft-tissue infections (1) and at 6 mg/kg/day for bacteremia and right-side endocarditis (12, 14).In recent years, reports of clinical failures and the emergence of resistant strains following daptomycin treatment have raised great concern (6, 18, 31). As a result, higher doses of daptomycin are being proposed as an alternative for some difficult-to-treat infections such as complicated bacteremia and endocarditis. Recently, doses of 10 mg/kg/day were studied using an in vitro model of staphylococcal endocarditis, with the results being promising in terms of efficacy and resistance prevention (25, 26). To date, clinical experience with the activity of the drug at doses higher than 6 mg/kg/day is limited (15, 28), whereas good safety and tolerance profiles for daptomycin at up to 12 mg/kg/day in volunteers have been reported (4).Foreign-body infections are difficult to treat because of the presence of bacterial biofilm and tolerance to antibiotics (10, 39). MRSA is commonly involved in such infections, and daptomycin may be a promising drug (39). However, clinical experience in this area is again scarce, and the recommended doses are not clearly established, there being reports of clinical failures with doses of 4 to 6 mg/kg/day (13, 24).The rat model of tissue cage infection is a well-standardized model that reasonably mimics human device infections (17, 20, 35). In this model, the efficacy of daptomycin has been partially studied (29, 34).Taken together, the available experimental and clinical data seem to indicate that high doses of daptomycin are required in the setting of foreign-body infection.In the present study, we aimed to test the efficacy of daptomycin at doses equivalent to 10 mg/kg/day in humans in a model of foreign-body infection with MRSA, comparing it with the efficacy of the current reference or main alternative treatments such as vancomycin, rifampin (rifampicin), and linezolid. We also sought to analyze the protection offered against the emergence of resistant strains.