Are infection specialists recommending short antibiotic treatment durations? An ESCMID international cross-sectional survey.
Open accessAbstract
Objectives: To evaluate the current practice and the willingness to shorten the duration of antibiotic therapy among infection specialists. Methods: Infection specialists giving at least weekly advice on antibiotic prescriptions were invited to participate in an online cross-sectional survey between September and December 2016. The questionnaire included 15 clinical vignettes corresponding to common clinical cases with favourable outcomes; part A asked about the antibiotic treatment duration they would usually advise to prescribers and part B asked about the shortest duration they were willing to recommend. Results: We included 866 participants, mostly clinical microbiologists (22.8%, 197/863) or infectious diseases specialists (58.7%, 507/863), members of an antibiotic stewardship team in 73% (624/854) of the cases, coming from 58 countries on all continents. Thirty-six percent of participants (271/749) already advised short durations of antibiotic therapy (compared with the literature) to prescribers for more than half of the vignettes and 47% (312/662) chose shorter durations in part B compared with part A for more than half of the vignettes. Twenty-two percent (192/861) of the participants declared that their regional/national guidelines expressed durations of antibiotic therapy for a specific clinical situation as a fixed duration as opposed to a range and in the multivariable analysis this was associated with respondents advising short durations for more than half of the vignettes (adjusted OR 1.5, P = 0.02). Conclusions: The majority of infection specialists currently do not advise the shortest possible duration of antibiotic therapy to prescribers. Promoting short durations among these experts is urgently needed.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Specialist consultation appears associated with improved patient outcomes for a variety of infectious syndromes.
“Specialist consultation appears to be associated with improved patient outcomes for a variety of infectious syndromes [295–300].”
From Surviving sepsis campaign: international guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock 2021 (2021) · cites this paper as [296]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Barlam, T. F., Cosgrove, S. E., Abbo, L. M., MacDougall, C., Schuetz, A. N., Septimus, E. J., Srinivasan, A., Dellit, T. H., Falck-Ytter, Y. T., Fishman, N. O., et al. (2016) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1093/cid/ciw118 · Cited by 3,147 · see citing works
Harbarth, S., Samore, M. H., Lichtenberg, D., & Carmeli, Y. (2000) · Circulation · doi:10.1161/01.cir.101.25.2916 · Cited by 589 · see citing works
Clinical Vignette-Based Surveys: A Tool for Assessing Physician Practice Variation
Veloski, J., Tai, S., Evans, A., & Nash, D. (2005) · American Journal of Medical Quality · doi:10.1177/1062860605274520 · Cited by 396 · see citing works
el Moussaoui, R., de Borgie, C. A. J. M., van den Broek, P., Hustinx, W. N. M., Bresser, P., van den Berk, G. E. L., Poley, J., van den Berg, B., Krouwels, F. H., Bonten, M. J. M., et al. (2006) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7554.1355 · Cited by 337 · see citing works
Emergence of Imipenem-Resistant Gram-Negative Bacilli in Intestinal Flora of Intensive Care Patients
Armand-Lefèvre, L., Angebault, C., Barbier, F., Hamelet, E., Defrance, G., Ruppé, É., Bronchard, R., Lepeule, R., Lucet, J., Mniai, A. E., et al. (2013) · Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy · doi:10.1128/aac.01823-12 · Cited by 299 · see citing works
The antibiotic course has had its day
Llewelyn, M., Fitzpatrick, J. M., Darwin, E., Tonkin-Crine, S. K., Gorton, C., Paul, J., Peto, T., Yardley, L., Hopkins, S., & Walker, A. S. (2017) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.j3418 · Cited by 275 · see citing works
Efficacy of Short-Course Antibiotic Regimens for Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Meta-analysis
Li, J. Z., Winston, L. G., Moore, D. H., & Bent, S. (2007) · The American Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2007.04.023 · Cited by 194 · see citing works
Duration of antibiotic therapy for bacteremia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Havey, T. C., Fowler, R. A., & Daneman, N. (2011) · Critical Care · doi:10.1186/cc10545 · Cited by 187 · see citing works
Short- versus Long-Course Antibacterial Therapy for Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Meta-Analysis
Dimopoulos, G., Matthaiou, D. K., Karageorgopoulos, D. E., Grammatikos, A. P., Athanassa, Z., & Falagas, M. E. (2008) · Drugs · doi:10.2165/00003495-200868130-00004 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
Eliakim-Raz, N., Yahav, D., Paul, M., & Leibovici, L. (2013) · Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy · doi:10.1093/jac/dkt177 · Cited by 153 · see citing works
Efficacy of Short-Course Antibiotic Regimens for Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Meta-analysis
Maurer, J. (2009) · Yearbook of Pulmonary Disease · doi:10.1016/s8756-3452(08)79054-6 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Proposal for shorter antibiotic therapies
Wintenberger, C., Guery, B. P., Bonnet, É., Castan, B., Cohen, R., Diamantis, S., Lesprit, P., Maulin, L., Pean, Y., Péju, E., et al. (2017) · Médecine et Maladies Infectieuses · doi:10.1016/j.medmal.2017.01.007 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Self-citationBasoli, A., Chirletti, P., Cirino, E., D'Ovidio, N., Doglietto, G. B., Giglio, D., Giulini, S. M., Malizia, A., Taffurelli, M., Petrovic, J., et al. (2007) · Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery · doi:10.1007/s11605-007-0277-x · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Karageorgopoulos, D. E., Valkimadi, P. E., Kapaskelis, A., Rafailidis, P. I., & Falagas, M. E. (2009) · Archives of Disease in Childhood · doi:10.1136/adc.2008.151563 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Three days of intravenous benzyl penicillin treatment of meningococcal disease in adults
Ellis-Pegler, R., Galler, L., Roberts, S., Thomas, M., & Woodhouse, A. (2003) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1086/377203 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2021.
Evans, L., Rhodes, A., Alhazzani, W., Antonelli, M., Coopersmith, C. M., French, C., Machado, F. R., Mcintyre, L., Ostermann, M., Prescott, H. C., et al. (2021) · Critical Care Medicine · doi:10.1097/ccm.0000000000005337 · Cited by 2,935 · see citing works
Surviving sepsis campaign: international guidelines for management of sepsis and septic shock 2021
Evans, L., Rhodes, A., Alhazzani, W., Antonelli, M., Coopersmith, C. M., French, C., Machado, F. R., Mcintyre, L., Ostermann, M., Prescott, H. C., et al. (2021) · Intensive Care Medicine · doi:10.1007/s00134-021-06506-y · Cited by 5,082 · see citing works
Short-course antibiotic therapy-replacing constantine units with “shorter is better”.
Wald-Dickler, N., & Spellberg, B. (2019) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1093/cid/ciy1134 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Late-career physicians prescribe longer courses of antibiotics.
Fernandez-Lazaro, C. I., Brown, K. A., Langford, B. J., Daneman, N., Garber, G., & Schwartz, K. L. (2019) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1093/cid/ciy1130 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
- Authors
- Macheda, G., Dyar, O. J., Luc, A., Beovic, B., Béraud, G., Castan, B., Gauzit, R., Lesprit, P., Tattevin, P., Thilly, N., Pulcini, C., & SPILF, E. A.
- Affiliations
- Centre Hospitalier Régional et Universitaire de Nancy (FR)
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Hôpital du Saint-Sacrement (CA)
- CH Ajaccio, Unité fonctionnelle d’infectiologie régionale, Ajaccio, France
- Hôpital Cochin (FR)
- Hôpital Foch (FR)
- Hôpital Pontchaillou (FR)
- CHRU de Nancy, Service de Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales, Nancy, France
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2018-01-16
- Volume
- 73
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1084-1090
- ISSN
- 0305-7453 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2091
- OpenAlex
- W2792745806
- Semantic Scholar
- 1eb6def0cc46121e26f7d80a881a6e3674f99d2d
- Cited by
- 24
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 1.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Document Server@UHasselt (UHasselt) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology › Antibiotic Use and Resistance
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Antibiotics Pharmacokinetics and Efficacy
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Surgical site infection prevention
- Keywords
- antibiotic duration, infectious disease specialists, clinical microbiologists, antibiotic stewardship, clinical guidelines
- MeSH terms
- Antimicrobial Stewardship, Procedures and Techniques Utilization, Adult, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Cross-Sectional Studies, Drug Utilization, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Practice Patterns, Physicians', Surveys and Questionnaires, Specialization, Time Factors, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
