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Variation in Use of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics for Acute Respiratory Tract Infection—Reply
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In Reply: We agree with Drs Karnath and Luh that our study did not include the full complement of clinical factors that might warrant broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment. However, there is no evidence to support their assertion that broad-spectrum antibiotics improve outcomes in patients with ARTIs and recent antibiotic treatment or a history of smoking. We also agree that some of the visits included in our analysis could have represented return visits, presumably for treatment failure. However, this proportion was likely to be small,1 and with the exception of acute otitis media (which represents a very small proportion of ARTIs in adults) we do not believe a return visit routinely requires treatment with a broad-spectrum antibiotic. In fact, most cases of "treatment failure" are likely due to use of an ineffective therapy for a viral infection (eg, antibiotics), as it is difficult to accurately identify the small minority of patients whose . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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