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Background: Vancomycin resistance has raised concerns about its effectiveness prospect in the treatment of patients with Gram-positive infections. The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) has recently established guidelines to delineate improper use of vancomycin. In this light, we sought out to determine the appropriateness of vancomycin prescription using the HICPAC guidelines. Setting: The study was carried out in two university-affiliated hospitals, Valiasr and Imam Reza, with 297 and 234 beds, respectively, from May 2012 to May 2013. Methods: This retrospective study evaluated the vancomycin prescription and usage in the hospitals. Total vancomycin use was determined and expressed as vancomycin courses per 298 admitted patients. The patient information was collected on a data collection sheet as follows: demographic variables, etiology and localization of infection, microbiological data, duration of vancomycin treatment, reasons for vancomycin prescription, prescribed antibiotic dosing, and patient regimen. Results: The average age of the patients and vancomycin treatment duration were 55.965 years and 10.5 days, respectively. Septicemia (15.7) was the most common cause of vancomycin administration. Vancomycin use was documented to be appropriate and inappropriate in 236 (89.4) and 28 (10.6) patients, respectively. No statistically significant differences were found among the wards and hospitals (P values =0.66 and 0.54, respectively) in terms of appropriateness of vancomycin use based on the HICPAC criteria. In addition, 29.21 and 62 of all patients exhibited complete and partial recovery, respectively. We found that 90 of the cases showed compliance with the HICPAC recommendations. Conclusion: Comprehensive programs are required to improve the vancomycin use in the hospitals. Vancomycin use should be monitored due to its large-scale empiric use. The rate of improper use of vancomycin in the infection and intensive care unit services may be high, and pharmacists must take appropriate action to optimize the use of the drug. © 2019 Mahi-Birjand et al.

Ghodsiyeh Azarkar,1 Motahare Mahi Birjand,2 Alireza Ehsanbakhsh,3 Bita Bijari,1 Mohammad Reza Abedini,4 Masood Ziaee1 1Infectious Disease Research Center, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran; 2Student Research Committee, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; 3Department of Radiology, Valiasr Hospital, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran; 4Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran Background: Ceftriaxone (CTX) is widely used for the treatment of bacterial infections; however, side effects such as gallstone and nephrolithiasis have been reported in children. There is limited information about urinary tract calculi as CTX side effects in adults. Therefore, the present study was aimed to evaluate the incidence of gallstone and nephrolithiasis following CTX administration.Methods: The present study was conducted in the Vali-e-Asr Hospital. Eighty-four patients with various infectious diseases with different daily treatment (mean ± SD: 4.19±2.54) were included in this study, consisting of 49 females and 35 males. The mean of total doses used in patients was 10.2143 (SD: 5.8585). To detect possible gallstone, gallbladder sludge, and urolithiasis, patients were evaluated by serial ultrasound before and after CTX treatment. Patients with renal and hepatobiliary dysfunction were excluded from the study and did not receive any nephrotoxic drugs during this study. Demographic parameters including age, sex, body mass index, dosage of CTX, as well as the duration of treatment and hospitalization were determined. Statistical significances were determined using Fisher’s exact test and independent t-test.Results: Results from our study showed that the incidence of gallstone and nephrolithiasis were 8.8% and 1.5% following CTX administration, respectively. Surprisingly, we found a significant correlation in terms of age between patients with and without gallstone (P=0.03).Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the patients’ age might play a role in the development of such a complication. This indicates the need for a close monitoring of CTX-treated patients to assess the possible formation of gallstone and nephrolithiasis. Keywords: ceftriaxone, gallstones, nephrolithiasis, sonography&nbsp