An interactive pharmacoeconomic model was designed to evaluate the effects of clinical response and adverse drug events on the comparative cost and cost-effectiveness of a relatively new antibiotic, clarithromycin, compared with those of six other antibiotics used to treat community-acquired lower respiratory tract infection. The cost and cost-effectiveness analyses were based don 12 randomized...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The aim of this study was to explore the associations of common medical complications with functional outcome at 90 days post stroke. METHODS Patients with unselected acute stroke were included and observed for 16 predefined complications during the first week. Fifty percent (244 patients) were allocated to follow-up of 13 complications until 90 days and then assessed w...

The 1974 article by my colleagues and me describing studies of coronavirus infection in hospitalized infants with acute lower respiratory–tract disease (LRTD) [1] takes on a particular interest in light of the 2002–2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus infections, with the wider perspective provided by that event on emerging epidemics, acute respiratory infection...

BACKGROUND Acute lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) presenting in primary care has a long natural history. Antibiotic treatment makes little or no difference to the duration of cough. Limited information is currently available regarding predictors of illness duration. AIM To determine predictors of illness duration in acute LRTI in primary care. DESIGN OF STUDY Secondary analysis of t...

BACKGROUND Influenza vaccination has been associated with a reduction in the number of hospitalizations for respiratory conditions in elderly persons over the period from 1996 to 2002. Little is known, however, about the effect of influenza vaccination on the whole range of severity of respiratory tract infections. METHODS We investigated the effect of annual influenza vaccination on the occu...

This study aimed to assess the potential risk factors for lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI)-related hospital admissions in Mongolian children. A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted in rural Mongolia in 2013, and 1,013 mother-child pairs were included. Of the participating children, 38.9% were admitted to hospital with LRTIs. Home smoking, low birthweight, being a male ch...

A detailed pharmacokinetic study of cefuroxime has been carried out. Levels of cefuroxime were determined in the blood, sputum, saliva, and urine of 23 patients receiving parenteral cefuroxime eight hourly for chest infections. Profiles were obtained after the first dose and on the final (fifth) day of treatment. Antibiotic levels in the sputum reached 0.8 mg/l within one hour of the first inje...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most important cause of lower respiratory disease in infants and young children, is rarely considered among the causes for community-acquired lower respiratory infection in adults. All noninstitutionalized adults hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia in two Ohio counties were evaluated between December 1990 and May 1992. Fifty-three (4.4%) of 1195...