Association Between Penicillin Allergy Documentation and Antibiotic Use
In this cross-sectional study of 10,992 inpatients receiving antibiotics from 106 US hospitals, 16% with a penicillin allergy documented on their medical record were treated more commonly with alternatives that may be inferior and/or associated with more adverse drug events
Source:
JAMA Internal Medicine
SPS commentary:
The researchers suggest that considering only a small number of the inpatients reporting penicillin allergy would have been truly allergic to penicillin, at least 90% of these antibiotic substitutions were likely unnecessary.