{"id":8221,"date":"2016-10-29T18:06:43","date_gmt":"2016-10-29T22:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/?p=8221"},"modified":"2018-09-23T07:03:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T11:03:34","slug":"antibiotics-small-abscesses-now-theres-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/antibiotics-small-abscesses-now-theres-answer\/2016\/10\/29\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Antibiotics Useful for Small Skin Abscesses? Now There’s an Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A “few” more steps is quite the understatement. And who chose that carpet?<\/p><\/div>\n

Let’s start with the clinical controversy, one that’s been bouncing around Emergency Rooms, outpatient practices, postgraduate courses, and medical journals for years. Specifically, are antibiotics helpful\u00a0for skin abscesses that are adequately drained?<\/p>\n

It’s still debated since of\u00a0course\u00a0most patients with this annoying problem will get better on their own provided the\u00a0drainage is adequate. What do the antibiotics add, if anything?<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0thanks to a superb clinical trial presented this past week in New Orleans at the annual IDWeek Meeting, we have some answers.<\/p>\n

And though the study is important, there’s a good chance you don’t\u00a0know about it, even if you attended IDWeek. First, just like the last time this group presented results of a different trial on\u00a0at a national meeting<\/a>, the abstract presentation took place in front of a only a handful of meeting\u00a0participants.<\/p>\n

Second, even if you wanted<\/em> to come see the presentation, you might have been stymied by the vast travel distances\u00a0inside the\u00a0New Orleans Convention Center, which must be one of the longest indoor spaces on the planet.\u00a0Safe to say that no one who attended this meeting finished a day with fewer than 10,000 steps, unless they brought along their hoverboards or Segways. Sometimes it felt like I was walking half the way to Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n

(For the record,\u00a0that first study ended up being\u00a0a major paper in the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>.<\/a>\u00a0Justice!)<\/p>\n

Anyway, here are some of the details of this new study:<\/a><\/p>\n