ArticleBMC infectious diseases2025
Baseline predictors of antibiotics de-escalation from empirical therapies in an intensive care unit: a five-year retrospective study.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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.
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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- De-Escalation of Broad-Spectrum and Last-Resort Antibiotics in Critically Ill Adults with Gram-Negative Infections: A Scoping Review and Evidence-Informed Framework for Tertiary-Care ICUs.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Use of procalcitonin point-of-care testing to guide de-escalation of antibiotic therapy in adults with suspected bacterial sepsis in a tertiary hospital in Bangladesh: a randomised controlled open-label trial.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe alarming rate of bacterial resistance has urged for vigorous antibiotic de-escalation cultures worldwide. However, the art of de-escalation remains challenging as most clinicians have the fear or stigma that antibiotic de-escalation is strongly associated with higher mortality. This study aimed to determine the factors strongly correlated with higher mortality rates after antibiotic de-escalation and possibly serve as a benchmark study for developing a validated antibiotic de-escalation tool in the near future.
methodThis retrospective study was conducted on patients hospitalized in a medical intensive care unit of a referral tertiary care center and subjected to antibiotics de-escalation over five years. Independent factors associated with mortality post antibiotics de-escalation were assessed. Various data were collected, including patient demographics, admission and discharge dates, a primary source of infection and free of infection status, choices of antibiotic used and de-escalation history, vital signs, data on X-ray changes, relevant laboratory investigations, microbiological culture history, mortality status, history of COVID-19 infection, presence of central line, number of vasopressors used, ventilator settings and respective SOFA scores.
resultsPrevalence of mortality among patients continued on broad-spectrum antibiotics empirically is remarkable. Through this study, it was found that the significant factors associated with mortality post antibiotic de-escalation were hospital-acquired infection (HAI) (Adjusted OR: 12.56; 95% CI: 2.88,54.98; p < 0.001), systolic blood pressure in mmHg (Adjusted OR: 0.08; 95% CI: 0.02,0.33; p < 0.001), heart rate in bpm (Adjusted OR: 0.12; 95% CI: 0.03,0.45; p:0.002), SOFA scores (Adjusted OR: 21.44; 95% CI: 3.55,129.52; p:0.001) and number of vasopressors (Adjusted OR: 38.46; 95% CI: 1.54,959.30; p:0.026).
conclusionDe-escalation of antibiotics is considerable as the identified significant factors serve as baseline predictors which would certainly be helpful especially during the decision-making process of antibiotic de-escalation among the clinicians. Therefore, antibiotics de-escalation is highly encouraged to reduce the mortality risks.
Indexed as
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.