ArticleERJ open research2023
The Short
Article in ERJ open research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- What is new in pleural infections?Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2026Review
- The role of molecular diagnostics in pleural empyema: insights from a 4-year analysis of microbial trends and antimicrobial use.Journal of medical microbiology · 2025Article
- Patient Preferences in empYema treatment (PAPY-study): are we investigating relevant outcomes for patients?Journal of thoracic disease · 2025Article
- A Practical Approach to Pleural Infection.Pulmonary therapy · 2025Article
- Pleural Infection: Diagnosis, Management, and Future Directions.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Infective Pleural Effusions-A Comprehensive Narrative Review Article.Clinics and practice · 2024Review
- Shorter and Longer Antibiotic Durations for Respiratory Infections: To Fight Antimicrobial Resistance-A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study in a Secondary Care Setting in the UK.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Medical treatment of pleural infection: antibiotic duration and corticosteroid usefulness.Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2023Article
- Diagnosis and management of pleural infection.Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Based on expert opinion, the length of antibiotic treatment for pleural infection in adults is typically recommended to be a minimum of 4 weeks. This clinical trial aimed to assess whether shorter antibiotic courses lead to more treatment failures than standard longer courses. Methods: In an open-label randomised controlled trial, adult patients with pleural infection who were medically treated and stabilised within 14 days of admission were randomised to either a short antibiotic course (total course 14-21 days) or a long antibiotic course (total course 28-42 days). Patients were excluded if their baseline RAPID score was >4 (high-risk category). The primary outcome was the incidence of treatment failure by 6 weeks post-admission. Secondary outcomes were total length of antibiotic treatment, proportion of patients who resumed normal activity levels within 6 weeks post-admission, time from discharge to resuming normal activity levels and incidence of antibiotic-related adverse reactions. Results: Between September 2020 and October 2021, 50 patients (mean±sd age 46±13.7 years; 35 (70%) males) were recruited to the trial and randomly assigned to the short course group (n=25) or the long course group (n=25), with outcome data available for 24 patients in each study group. Treatment failure occurred in four (16.7%) patients in the short course group and three (12.5%) patients in the long course group. In the intention-to-treat analysis the OR for treatment failure in the long course group was 0.714 (95% CI 0.142-3.600; p=0.683). The median (interquartile range) duration of antibiotic treatment in the short course group was 20.5 (18-22.5) days compared with 34.5 (32-38) days in the long course group (p<0.001). There were no statistically significant differences in the other outcomes. Conclusions: In medically treated adult patients with pleural infection a long course of antimicrobial therapy did not lead to fewer treatment failures compared with a shorter course. These findings need to be confirmed in a larger multicentre trial.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.