Antimicrobial resistance to antibiotic treatment has significantly increased during recent years, causing this to become a worldwide public health problem. More than 70% of pathogenic bacteria are resistant to at least one of the currently used antibiotics. Polymyxin E (colistin) has recently been used as a "last line" therapy when treating Gram-negative multi-resistant bacteria. However, little is known about these molecules' pharmacological use as they have been discontinued because of their high toxicity. Recent research has been focused on determining colistimethate sodium's pharmacokinetic parameters to find the optimal dose for maintaining a suitable benefit-risk balance. This review has thus been aimed at describing the use of colistin on patients infected by multi-drug resistant bacteria and the importance of measuring this drug's plasma levels in such patients.
Keywords: Gram-negative bacteria; antimicrobial resistance; colistin; extensive-drug resistant (XDR); multidrug-resistant (MDR); pandrug-resistant (PDR); therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM).