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Clinicians often use serial C-reactive protein (CRP) measurements in patients with various infections, including native vertebral osteomyelitis (NVO), to gauge response to prolonged antibiotic therapy. However, evidence supporting this strategy is limited. To learn more, researchers retrospectively analyzed data on 143 adults with NVO who were treated with antibiotics for at least 6 weeks and had at least 2 appropriately timed CRP measurements. Methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus was the organism identified most often in tissue and blood cultures.
The median last CRP measurement was higher in patients with treatment failure than in those with treatment success (21.0 mg/dl [25 patients] vs. 8.9 mg/dl [118 patients]…