Empiric de-escalation strategy of antibiotic treatment

Dalia Adukauskienė, Astra Vitkauskienė¹

Intensive Care Clinic, ¹Institute for Biomedical Research, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Key words: nosocomial pneumonia, ventilator-acquired pneumonia, severe sepsis, resistant organisms, de-escalation therapy, mortality.

Summary. Nosocomial pneumonia, especially ventilator-acquired pneumonia, has the greatest impact on patients’ management in intensive care unit. Inappropriate initial antimicrobial treatment increases attributable and crude mortality from ventilator-acquired pneumonia. De-escalation therapy improves short-term survival of patients with ventilator-acquired pneumonia without increasing the emergence of resistant organisms.

Correspondence to D. Adukauskienė, Clinic of Intensive Care, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: daliaadukauskiene@hotmail.com

Received 28 February 2006, accepted 28 April 2006