Antimicrobial Stewardship

Blood-Borne Diseases

Climate Change

Coronavirus

Covid Vaccine Race

Food Borne Infection / Food Safety

Gastrointestinal Infections

Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI)

Prevention

Respiratory Infections

Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Skin & Soft Tissue Diseases

Zoonotic & Vector-Borne Diseases

News

Media

Medical World News

Podcasts

Videos

Insights

Peer Exchange

News Network

Conference

Conference Coverage

Conference Listing

Publication

CME/CE

Partners

Resources

Interactive Tools

Special Projects

Subscribe

Print Subscription

eNewsletter

Contagion® is a fully integrated news resource for practitioners and specialists to assist with the identification, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of infectious diseases.

About Us

Advertise

Editorial

Contact Us

Do Not Sell My Information

Privacy

Terms & Conditions

Contagion Live | Infectious Disease News & Expert Insights

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Spotlight

Bench to Bedside With SIDP

C difficile 

COVID Vaccine Race 

Hepatitis

PrEP

Clinical

Food-Borne Infections

Healthcare-Associated Infections

Respiratory Diseases

Video Series

Peers and Perspectives

1rem

Community-Acquired Pneumonia 

Among community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) outpatients, 49% were prescribed unnecessary antibiotics.

Antimicrobial Stewardship After Patient Discharge Is Lacking 

An analysis of readmissions after hospitalization with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in France found that few readmissions were avoidable, supporting criticism that the measure may lead to unfair penalties under pay-for-performance programs.

Few Readmissions After Hospitalization for CAP Are Avoidable

Antimicrobial stewardship efforts, such as education for healthcare providers, significantly decreased community-acquired pneumonia antibiotic prescriptions in COVID-19 patients.

Antimicrobial Stewardship Education Reduces Antibiotic Prescriptions in COVID-19 Patients 

Vicky Enne, BSc, PhD, and Vanya Gant, MBBS, PhD, believe there’s a better way to diagnose pneumonia-causing pathogens in intensive care units (ICUs).

“When people get really sick in intensive care unit and develop a pneumonia, you’ve got to act fast,” said Gant. “You don’t know why, you don’t know what the bacteria are, and basically you guess.”

, these investigators detailed their multi-center, randomized, controlled trial, INHALE.

INHALE examined the utility of rapid diagnostics for hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-acquired pneumonia (VAP) in critical care. The data were shared as a late breaking clinical trial at the 

“We took the [BioFire] FilmArray Pneumonia Panel…to find the etiological diagnosis of pneumonia, and we put that in a randomized control trial,” Enne explained. “It was a multi-center trial of 14 different ICUs.”

What made this trial unique was that the team specifically placed the device at the product of care in the ICU. “We did this for 2 reasons,” said Enne, “number 1 so that we would not lose transport time, and secondly so that ICU physicians would feel more ownership of the test.”

The goal of the study was to promote narrow-spectrum antimicrobial use, so the investigators sought to encourage the ICU physicians to engage with the FilmArray Pneumonia Pannel. “That way, they would be more likely to actually use it and prescribe accordingly,” said Enne.

The investigators emphasized that this trial was “completely real life” with no participants excluded; they wanted to mimic what actually happens in the ICU.

The study found that the proportion of patients on antibiotics improved by 20%, compared to the control group. However, the study failed to meet the inferiority margin for clinical cure. “We do not fully understand why,” said Enne, but this result has prompted further investigation. Gant clarified, “The diagnosis that the machine made we believe to be absolutely correct.”

Without a rapid and reliable diagnostic test, said Gant, “You give antibiotics that you think are a best bet, depending on where you are in the world and what the local bugs are resistant to, but it’s guesswork, and we should be able to do better.”

This study, “INHALE WP3: Results of a multi-center rrandomized controlled trial (INHALE) testing the utility of rapid multiplex PCR at point-of-care for the antibiotic management of hospital-acquired and ventilator-associated pneumonia in critical care,” was presented as a late-breaking vaccine study during the 

 conference, held October 19-23, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

Encouraging ICU physicians to utilize rapid diagnostics, like the FilmArray Pneumonia Panel, may improve patient outcomes. 

Antibiotics

Conferences

Taking the Guesswork out of ICU Pneumonia Diagnosis

, a consistent cause for concern, was heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. As healthcare workers strugg led to treat virus patients, 

 were deployed frequently and unnecessarily.

Therefore, Erica Stohs, MD, MPH, explains, 

Stohs is an Associate Program Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. At the 

, Stohs presented research centering around the BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia (PN) Panel that she and her team implemented in 2020.

The study coincided with that year’s peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the team examined how the test was utilized in COVID-19 patients, and whether it affected antibiotic use.

Conducting this research in COVID-19 patients coinfected with pneumonia was vital, Stohs explained, as there was a significant overuse of antimicrobials in this cohort. The investigators determined what they were isolating, and whether secondary bacterial pneumonia was actually occurring.

“While these were mostly community-acquired organisms,” Stohs explained, “the empiric antibiotics used were for hospital-acquired organisms, which was not necessary.” She emphasized the importance of the work her team did to deescalate patients to targeted therapy or stop antibiotics entirely.

“Diagnostic stewardship is always an area of need,” Stohs said. She explained this is especially true for pneumonia, which can have limited culture data.

“By far, the most significant finding was that in almost 50% of patients who were on 

Stohs was a panelist for the discussion “Challenging Cases in Transplant Infectious Diseases,” presented at 

, held October 19-23, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

At IDWeek 2022, Erica Stohs, MD, MPH, presented surprising findings about unnecessary antibiotics in a cohort coinfected with COVID-19 and pneumonia.

Community-Acquired Pneumonia

Latest News