Clinical research studyEfficacy of Short-Course Antibiotic Regimens for Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Meta-analysis
Section snippets
Search Strategy
We used the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline, and Embase to find publications from 1980 through June 2006. In the Cochrane database, the record title was searched for the keyword “pneumonia.” Articles in Medline and Embase were found by searching for clinical studies or trials with the word “pneumonia” in the title and without the following keywords in the title: “pneumocystis,” “aspiration,” “aspirate,” “nosocomial,” “ventilator,” “ventilation,” “ventilated,”
Description of Studies
Our search strategy identified more than 3700 potential references (Figure 1). Most studies were excluded due to the fact that they were not randomized controlled trials or did not compare a short-course versus an extended-course antibiotic regimen. Fifteen studies met our inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in this meta-analysis (Table 1). These studies were published between 1990 and 2004 and comprised a total of 2796 subjects. Ten studies enrolled more than 100 participants
Discussion
In this meta-analysis, we found no significant differences between short-course and extended-course antibiotic regimens for the treatment of mild to moderate community-acquired pneumonia with respect to clinical success, mortality, bacteriologic success, and adverse events. The results were consistent across a wide range of analyses, including both the intention-to-treat and per-protocol patient populations, high-quality studies, and individual antibiotic classes. Both outpatients and
Acknowledgments
We thank Gloria Won for her invaluable advice on the Embase and Medline literature searches. We are grateful for the help Yoshio Hall and Delphine Tuot provided in translating articles.
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