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Comment
. 2009;13(4):165.
doi: 10.1186/cc7935. Epub 2009 Jul 13.

When once is not enough--further evidence of procalcitonin-guided antibiotic stewardship

Stephan Harbarth  1 , Werner C Albrich, Beat Müller
Affiliations
Comment

When once is not enough--further evidence of procalcitonin-guided antibiotic stewardship

Stephan Harbarth et al. Crit Care. 2009.

Abstract

Every day, critical care physicians around the world face the same challenge of the optimal timing of antimicrobial administration: when to start and when to stop antibiotics. Duration of antibiotic therapy for sepsis is mostly based on expert opinion, but its reduction is arguably the most promising approach to decrease emergence and selection of antibiotic resistance. The study by Hochreiter and colleagues presents another piece of evidence suggesting that procalcitonin may indeed be a valuable diagnostic parameter to guide antibiotic treatment duration, despite the ongoing controversy about the diagnostic accuracy of pro-calcitonin.

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References

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