Antibiotic treatment of severe exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with procalcitonin: a randomized noninferiority trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The duration of antibiotic treatment of exacerbations of COPD (ECOPD) is controversial. Serum procalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker of bacterial infection used to identify the cause of ECOPD.

Methods and findings

We investigated whether a PCT-guided plan would allow a shorter duration of antibiotic treatment in patients with severe ECOPD. For this multicenter, randomized, non-inferiority trial, we enrolled 184 patients hospitalized with ECOPD from 18 hospitals in Italy. Patients were assigned to receive antibiotics for 10 days (standard group) or for either 3 or 10 days (PCT group). The primary outcome was the rate of ECOPD at 6 months. Having planned to recruit 400 patients, we randomized only 183: 93 in the PCT group and 90 in the standard group. Thus, the complete

SUBMITTER: Verduri A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4356612 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature