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A new antibiotic recently approved for treating bacterial infections may also treat potentially fatal MRSA pneumonia, according to a new study.

New research reveals that patients treated with the antibiotic ceftaroline fosamil, or CPT-F, had a lower mortality rate after 28 days than those treated with a common MRSA pneumonia therapy called vancomycin.

Researchers said that 33 of 38 patients responded well to treatments of CPT-F and were discharged from the hospital after the infection cleared. Researchers said that of the five who died, three were attributed to other serious medical conditions.

While the mortality rate for patients treated with vancomycin was 32 percent after 28 days, the mortality rate for patients treated with CPT-F was just 13 percent.

The findings will be presented Wednesday at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy meeting in Denver.

"Many things fall under the umbrella of proper and appropriate MRSA pneumonia treatment, and these results present a possible benefit with the use of CPT-F," lead researcher Samia Arshad, a Henry Ford Infectious Diseases epidemiologist, said in a news release. "It is critical for us to find alternative drug therapies to improve patient outcomes. Further research is needed to test the efficacy of CPT-F on a larger patient population as CPT-F offers doctors another viable option for treating patients with MRSA pneumonia."