Identifying heterogeneity of treatment effect for antibiotic duration in bloodstream infection: an exploratory post-hoc analysis of the BALANCE randomised clinical trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The BALANCE trial demonstrated non-inferiority of 7 (vs 14) day antibiotic durations in patients with uncomplicated non-S. aureus/lugdunensis bacterial bloodstream infections (BSI). However, there may be patient subgroups who benefit from longer durations. We aimed to evaluate if bedside clinical decision rules could identify these subgroups.

Methods

In this post-hoc analysis of the multicentre, randomised BALANCE trial (October 17, 2014-May 5, 2023), we applied three clinical decision rules to investigate heterogeneity of treatment effect in 7-day vs 14-day antibiotic durations on 90-day all-cause mortality. We used the rules to categorize patients in BALANCE into different risk groups and calculated the unadjusted absolute risk difference (RD) for 90-day

SUBMITTER: Ong SWX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12008128 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature