An audit of clinical outcome for patients with community-acquired pneumonia treated with combinations of benzylpenicillin, chloramphenicol and doxycycline: Category: Scientific free paper

Abstract

An update to the British Thoracic Society (BTS) national guideline for the management of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) was published in 2009. The BTS guideline recommends preferred treatment with amoxicillin for low severity CAP, a beta-lactam (amoxicillin or benzylpenicillin) with clarithromycin for moderate severity CAP and co-amoxiclav with clarithromycin for severe CAP. The BTS made a standard data collection template available to UK hospitals to audit adherence to selected elements of the CAP guideline. First-line empirical antibiotic treatment recommendations for CAP in our 1,000-bed university hospital differ from those of the BTS guideline in an effort to mitigate the risk of Clostridium difficile superinfection. This non-randomised prospective observational study was carried out to evaluate outcomes for patients treated according to local recommendations compared with national data from the BTS audit.