BMJ  2006;332:1213-1214 (20 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7551.1213-b

Letter

Pneumonia

Macrolides or amoxicillin for community acquired pneumonia?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—In their update of the management of community acquired pneumonia, Hoare and Lim reported the current recommendations of the British Thoracic Society for empirical antibiotic treatment of pneumonia.1 In children as well as adults the recommendations for the antibiotic treatment of community acquired pneumonia are based on a low level of evidence in national guidelines and literature review.2-4

A critical issue, affecting adults and children older than 5 years of age, is that the use of macrolides as first line treatment of outpatients with community acquired pneumonia is not based on randomised controlled trials. We disagree with this indication because Streptococcus pneumoniae not only is the most common causative agent of pneumonia but also is associated with more severe diseases than other pathogens. The prevalence of macrolide resistance in patients with S pneumoniae infection continues to rise worldwide. The latest (2001) update of the Alexander project (www.Alexander-Network.com. . . [Full text of this article]

Federico Marchetti, paediatrician

marchetti@burlo.trieste.it, Department of Paediatrics, Institute of Child Health, IRCSS Burlo Garofolo, Via dell'Istria 65/1, 34100 Trieste, Italy

Irene Berti, paediatrician

Department of Paediatrics, Institute of Child Health, IRCSS Burlo Garofolo, Via dell'Istria 65/1, 34100 Trieste, Italy


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Pneumonia: update on diagnosis and management
Zara Hoare and Wei Shen Lim
BMJ 2006 332: 1077-1079. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ