Over-use of broad-spectrum antibiotics can result in poor outcomes and a higher risk of death for people with pneumonia, researchers have found.
While drug-resistant pathogens were found in only 3% of cases, almost 40% of the patients studied received broad-spectrum antibiotics, reported researcher Brandon J. Webb, M.D., from Intermountain Medical Center, Utah. And 17% of the deaths that followed were directly tied to those medications, he wrote.
In addition to a greater risk of death, Webb’s investigation showed that uncurbed antibiotic use was linked to longer hospital stays, greater healthcare costs, and increased Clostridioides difficile infection.
The study provides additional evidence linking antibiotic overuse to poor pneumonia outcomes. In July, McKnight’s reported that two-thirds of 6,500 patients at 43 Michigan hospitals were prescribed overlong courses of antibiotics. Most of those prescriptions were written at discharge. Every day a patient was prescribed antibiotics beyond the recommended minimum, the higher their risk of complications from the drugs.
Clinicians should therefore take special care to review antibiotic prescriptions when residents return after hospitalization for pneumonia, Valerie Vaughn, M.D., M.Sc., told McKnight’s. She advised that most patients who are discharged to rehab need between three and five days of therapy depending on their pneumonia diagnosis, and that antibiotics can often be stopped between one and three days of their original hospital discharge.
