Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 2002 Nov 16;119(17):641-3.
doi: 10.1016/s0025-7753(02)73527-6.

[Community-acquired pneumonia: usefulness of clinical presentation in the selection of antibiotic treatment]

[Article in Spanish]
Agustín Ruiz  1 , Miquel Falguera, Oscar Sacristán, Montserrat Vallverdú, Xavier Cabré, Jesús Pérez, Gerard Ferrer
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

[Community-acquired pneumonia: usefulness of clinical presentation in the selection of antibiotic treatment]

[Article in Spanish]
Agustín Ruiz et al. Med Clin (Barc). .

Abstract

Background: Our purpose was to assess the usefulness of a strategy based on the clinical presentation in order to choose antibiotics in patients with non-severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).

Patients and method: During one year, all patients admitted to the emergency department with a diagnosis of non-severe (Fine risk-classes I, II and III) CAP, were randomized and assigned into the following groups: GROUP 1: the clinical presentation was not taken into account and all patients were treated with levofloxacin; GROUP 2: patients with typical presentation were treated with amoxicillin and patients with atypical presentation were treated with clarithromycin. The following aspects were evaluated during the follow-up: presence of fever after 72 h of treatment, days of hospitalization and complications.

Results: The eventual population analyzed included 125 patients: 59 (47%) were assigned to Group 1 and 66 (53%) to Group 2. Patients assigned to Group 1 had a lower rate of fever after 72 h of treatment (7% vs 27%, p = 0.005); they were hospitalized for fewer days (4.8 vs 8.1 days, p = 0.01), and had less complications: changes in antibiotic treatment (10% vs 23% p = NS), admissions in ICU (0% vs 5%, p = NS), re-admissions in hospital (0% vs 5%, p = 0.05) and mortality (0% vs 2%, p = NS).

Conclusions: A strategy of empiric treatment of non-severe CAP with levofloxacin as the antibiotic of choice is more useful than that of a treatment based on the clinical presentation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

MeSH terms