Treatment of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) with intravenous colistin: a comparison with imipenem-susceptible VAP.

We prospectively evaluated the efficacy and toxicity of intravenously administered colistin in 35 episodes of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) due to multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. Microbiological diagnosis was performed with use of quantitative culture. In 21 patients, the episodes were caused by a strain susceptible exclusively to colistin (the CO group) and were all treated with this antimicrobial intravenously.