This is bold research, IMHO. The link is to the complete article. I only read the abstract and introduction. I hope it can be replicated for community acquired pneumonia. I would not extrapolate the results to other diagnoses.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting!
Yeah, what worked in the trials was that no one got diarrhea during that time. So, the "most effective" dose becomes the one that requires taking the most number of pills before causing such an unpleasant side effect.
This is very interesting research, thanks very much for posting.
But penicillin (amoxicillin) is a unique situation. There is nothing new here. Few doctors prescribe amoxicillin for 10 days.
Treatment for strep with penicillin, for instance, is often a single shot to the buttocks.
Smells like bullshit to me. I fail to see how a "too long" treatment can breed resistant bacteria, but a "too short" treatment period, with recurrence and retreatment certainly CAN cause such.
I agree: 3 days of amoxicillin for pneumonia is just as good as 8 days, if the patients have already gotten better by 3 days.
Seriously -
"Our results apply only to patients with mild to moderate-severe community acquired pneumonia who substantially improved after three days' amoxicillin treatment. The conclusions do not apply to the population with severe community acquired pneumonia—that is, those with a pneumonia severity index score of more than 110 or serious respiratory insufficiency. We also excluded patients with a severe immunodeficiency syndrome or a significant amount of pleural fluid. "
I would imagine that we should continue to treat sepsis, abcesses, and mixed infections in those who are immunocompromised (diabetes, COPD, etc.) with wide spectrum, long course meds.