Early treatment with corticosteroids in patients with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia: a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Background: Corticosteroids have been evaluated for management of severe Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MP) in children. However, it is unclear whether the timing of treatment with corticosteroids affects the patients' clinical outcome.

Methods: We did a prospective randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effect of early use of corticosteroids. Fifty-three patients were randomly assigned to treatment with corticosteroids within 24 h after admission (cases), and 53 patients were treated 72 h after admission (control patients).

Results: Cases had a shorter fever duration [6 days (range 5-11) vs. 10 days (range 8-23), p < 0.001] and length of hospital stay [8 days (range 5-15) vs. 10 days (range 5-21), p = 0.001]. Four cases (1.9%) had a complete radiographic resolution time >4 weeks compared with 10 control patients (17.5%; p = 0.038; Table 2).

Conclusions: Early treatment with corticosteroids was associated with a better outcome in patients with severe MP.

Keywords: Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia; corticosteroids.