Hindawi Publishing Corporation Case Reports in Pediatrics

Copyright © 2011 Timothy Stidham et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Vancomycin is routinely used for empiric antibiotic therapy in children. Higher-serum-concentration targets for serious infections are now being recommended. This recommendation may result in aggressive dosing with increased potential for toxicity. We report a case of a pediatric patient who developed vancomycin toxicity and associated oliguric renal failure who was treated effectively with high-flux hemodialysis for vancomycin toxicity, clearing serum concentrations of vancomycin by over 75 % in only 6 hours (213.2mcg/mL to 51.8mcg/mL) with subsequent return to baseline renal function and without adverse sequelae. While not historically considered a viable option for drug removal in cases of toxicity, new high-flux hemodialysis techniques can remove significant percentages of vancomycin in short periods of time. 1. Background Vancomycin is a narrow-spectrum tricyclic glycopeptide an