She is researching the extended or continuous use of bata-lactam antibiotic infusion in critically ill children, which might be much more efficient than short-term infusion. Her meta-analysis on this topic was recently published, and clinical research on it is set to begin soon. In October Kinga Budai was named the Best Second-Year PhD Student at the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Kinga Budai is a clinical hospital pharmacist at the University Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Administration at Semmelweis University. She works at the Bókay Street Department, Pediatric Centre and alongside it, she started her PhD studies at the Centre for Translational Medicine. “I research the use of antibiotics in pediatric intensive therapy. My specific focus is to investigate what is the most effective and safe method to use beta-lactam. This antibiotic is used to treat a variety of infections, primarily in critically ill children. The drug prescription indicates that beta-lactam should be infused over half an hour, but we hypothesized that extended or continuous infusion might be better. This means that the infusion could last for up to three hours or even longer. So far there was no scientific evidence that this was better for children, that's why I started my research. My meta-analysis on this topic has just been published.”
Dr. Budai's meta-analysis clearly shows that extended or continuous infusion of beta-lactam is more effective, killing bacteria faster and resulting in better mortality rates. Extended dosing doesn’t change the side effects, which are not more likely to occur this way. At this dose, bacteria are less likely to develop resistance against antibiotics. A randomized clinical trial will be conducted at the pediatric clinic on the use of extended or short infusions. This will clarify the situation.
The other project of Dr. Budai is also related to antibiotic use in intensive therapy. Her team measured drug levels in patients requiring continuous renal replacement therapy. In several cases, drug levels were extremely low, indicating that drug dosing is inadequate in these critical cases. There are no publications on this yet.
(Szabó Emese)