Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33376597›Full record

ArticleEvolution, medicine, and public health2020

Treatment timing shifts the benefits of short and long antibiotic treatment over infection.

Erida Gjini, Francisco F S Paupério, Vitaly V Ganusov

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Evolution, medicine, and public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
16citing papers in PubMed
1.6field-weighted citation impact, top 16% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

16 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Article
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  9. Review
  10. An ecological and stochastic perspective on persisters resuscitation.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2025
    Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Short-course antibiotic therapy: The next frontier in antimicrobial stewardship.Canada communicable disease report = Releve des maladies transmissibles au Canada · 2022
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Photobiomodulation studies on diabetic wound healing: An insight into the inflammatory pathway in diabetic wound healing.Wound repair and regeneration : official publication of the Wound Healing Society [and] the European Tissue Repair Society
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Erida GjiniMathematical Modeling of Biological Processes Laboratory, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Rua da Quinta Grande, 6, Oeiras, 2780-156, Portugal.ORCID 0000-0002-0493-3102
Francisco F S PaupérioMathematical Modeling of Biological Processes Laboratory, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Rua da Quinta Grande, 6, Oeiras, 2780-156, Portugal.
Vitaly V GanusovDepartment of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência · PTUniversity of Lisbon · PTUniversity of Tennessee at Knoxville · US

Funding

Mathematical modeling of immune response to malariaR01GM118553 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE · PI GANUSOV, VITALY V. · 2017 to 2021
$1.6M
NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM118553
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Antibiotics are the major tool for treating bacterial infections. Rising antibiotic resistance, however, calls for a better use of antibiotics. While classical recommendations favor long and aggressive treatments, more recent clinical trials advocate for moderate regimens. In this debate, two axes of 'aggression' have typically been conflated: treatment intensity (dose) and treatment duration. The third dimension of treatment timing along each individual's infection course has rarely been addressed. By using a generic mathematical model of bacterial infection controlled by immune response, we examine how the relative effectiveness of antibiotic treatment varies with its timing, duration and antibiotic kill rate. We show that short or long treatments may both be beneficial depending on treatment onset, the target criterion for success and on antibiotic efficacy. This results from the dynamic trade-off between immune response build-up and resistance risk in acute, self-limiting infections, and uncertainty relating symptoms to infection variables. We show that in our model early optimal treatments tend to be 'short and strong', while late optimal treatments tend to be 'mild and long'. This suggests a shift in the aggression axis depending on the timing of treatment. We find that any specific optimal treatment schedule may perform more poorly if evaluated by other criteria, or under different host-specific conditions. Our results suggest that major advances in antibiotic stewardship must come from a deeper empirical understanding of bacterial infection processes in individual hosts. To guide rational therapy, mathematical models need to be constrained by data, including a better quantification of personal disease trajectory in humans.

Indexed as

antibiotic resistanceimmunity-resistance tradeoffinfection dynamicstreatment duration and timing

Identifiers

PMID33376597
PMCPMC7750949
OpenAlexW3083013249

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.