Do you use standard dose or "meningitis dosing" of antibiotics when treating epidural abscesses, in the absence of CNS symptoms?  

Not always. While I will use meningitis dosing for initial therapy, I have no qualms about using cefazolin for MSSA (and several recent publications support this), nor using ceftriaxone 2g/d for streptococcal infection. And frequently after the initial 3-4 weeks on IV, I transition to oral doxycycli...

Of course, I use meningitis-type dosing in patients with SEA or suspected SEA. Why wouldn't I? It's not to penetrate the meninges; it's a coincidence. For any abscess, I use increased dosing to penetrate the abscess. I agree with Dr. @Bradsher. Most SEAs I have treated are secondary to aureus. And, ...

I use "meningitis dosing" for epidural abscess - not because of my concern for meningitis, but because these infections often begin in the disc space, spread to the end plates of the vertebral bodies, then out to form abscess, assuming this is not a post-neurosurgery abscess. We do not have neurosur...

I do use meningitis-type dosing of antibiotics when treating epidural abscesses because of the concern of localized meningitis in the epidural space. Since many or most epidural abscesses that I have taken care of are from Staph aureus, I have traditionally used Nafcillin or Oxacillin if MSSA and Va...

Meningitis dosing.

I use standard dosing since there is no high-level evidence supporting the need for a higher dose. Additionally, I am not aware of any robust observational studies demonstrating superior outcomes with "meningitic" dosing. I find this study on anti-staphylococcal penicillins versus cefazolin ...

It is usually unnecessary to use "meningitis dosing" of antibiotics to treat spinal epidural abscesses in the absence of meningitis. In fact, I really like using clindamycin for bone and joint infections/abscesses in both adults and children since it is lipophilic, gets great levels in infected tiss...