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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Vancomycin has been in use for more than half a century, but whether it is truly nephrotoxic and to what extent are still highly controversial. The objective of this study was to determine the risk of AKI attributable to intravenous vancomycin. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: We conducted a systematic review of randomized, controlled trials and cohort studies that compared patients treated with intravenous vancomycin with a control group of patients given a comparator nonglycopeptide antibiotic and in which kidney function or kidney injury outcomes were reported. PubMed and Cochrane Library were searched from 1990 to September of 2015. Two reviewers extracted data and assessed study risk of bias, and one reviewer adjudicated the assessments. A meta-analysis was conducted on seven randomized, controlled trials (total of 4033 patients). RESULTS: Moderate quality evidence suggested that vancomycin treatment is associated with a higher risk of AKI, with a relative risk of 2.45 (95% confidence interval, 1.69 to 3.55). The risk of kidney injury was similar in patients treated for skin and soft tissue infections compared with those treated for nosocomial pneumonia and other complicated infections. There was an uncertain risk of reporting bias, because kidney function was not a prespecified outcome in any of the trials. The preponderance of evidence was judged to be indirect, because the majority of studies compared vancomycin specifically with linezolid. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that there is a measurable risk of AKI associated with vancomycin, but the strength of the evidence is moderate. A randomized, controlled trial designed to study kidney function as an outcome would be needed to draw unequivocal conclusions.

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Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in America. Frequent sites of metastasis include the Hilar lymph nodes, adrenal glands, liver, brain, and bone. The following case report is of a primary lung cancer with metastases to the breast and skin. Case. A 48-year-old African American male with a past medical history of poorly differentiated left breast cancer status after modified radical mastectomy (MRM), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and smoking (20 pack-years) presents to the ER with progressive shortness of breath on exertion, upper back pain, and weight loss for 2 months in duration. On physical examination he is found to have a MRM scar on his left breast and a left periumbilical cutaneous mass. Chest X-ray and chest CT reveal a right upper lobe mass and biopsies from the breast, lung, and the periumbilical mass indicate a poorly differentiated carcinoma of unclear etiology; all tumor markers are negative. The patient is male and a chronic smoker; therefore the diagnosis is made as lung carcinoma with metastases to the breast and skin. Conclusion. A high index of suspicion for cutaneous metastases should be cast when investigating cutaneous pathologies in patients at risk for primary lung malignancy.