Guideline for Antibiotic Use in Adults with Community-acquired Pneumonia

Lee, Mi Suk; Oh, Jee Youn; Kang, Cheol-In; Kim, Eu Suk; Park, Sunghoon; Rhee, Chin Kook; Jung, Ji Ye; Jo, Kyung-Wook; Heo, Eun Young; Park, Dong-Ah; Suh, Gee Young; Kiem, Sungmin

Although antibiotics are generally administered for 7-10 days, the adequate duration of the administration period may change depending on the causative bacteria, patient's conditions, types of antibiotics, treatment response, accompanying diseases and complications of pneumonia the patient has [15, 152] . In general, antibiotics are administered for at least five days. For a treatment to be terminated, a patient must not have a fever for 48-72 hours, and must show one or more of the signs of clinical stable shown in Table 9 before the treatment completion [15] . A study has reported that for gemifloxaicn and levofloxacin (750 mg/d), five-day administration is sufficient [138, 153] . Antibiotics with long half-lives (e.g. azithromycin) may be used for 3-5 days [153] [154] [155] . In the cases of S. aureus pneumonia accompanied by bacteremia, enteric Gram-negative bacilli pneumonia, pneumonia accompanied by infections of other organs, and early treatment failures, short-term antibiotic treatment may be insufficient [15] . Patients who have formed cavities, or show signs of tissue necrosis may require long-term treatment [15] . Legionella pneumonia must be treated for at least 14 days [152] .