An Italian experience of sequential intravenous and oral azithromycin plus intravenous ampicillin/sulbactam in hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia.

The efficacy and safety of intravenous (i.v.) azithromycin followed by the oral form, given in addition to i.v. ampicillin-sulbactam, were evaluated in 151 patients hospitalized due to community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Azithromycin 500 mg i.v. once daily plus ampicillin/sulbactam 3 g i.v. twice daily were administered for 2-5 days, then followed by oral azithromycin 500 mg once daily plus the same i.v. ampicillin/sulbactam regimen for a total of 7-10 days of treatment. The clinical response at day 14 was defined as cure, improvement or failure (with the addition of relapse at follow-up at day 30). The other efficacy measures included microbiological (eradication, presumed eradication, persistence, relapse, superinfection) and radiological (resolution, improvement, failure) findings, and outcome of signs and symptoms. Adverse events, vital signs and routine laboratory tests were the safety variables. The number and rate of patients with a positive clinical outcome at day 14 (cured + improved) in the intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis (n = 138) were 119 (86.2%), while 118 (87.4%) were cured or improved in the per-protocol population (PP) subset (n = 135). The rate of success at day 14 was slightly lower in the treated population (78.8%), which included all patients discontinued due to any cause. Clinical failures in the ITT population were 19 (13.8%) at day 14 and 1 (0.9%) at day 30, while 4 patients (3.6%) relapsed at day 30. Signs and symptoms of CAP improved from baseline to endpoint. The results in patients with a pathogen isolated at baseline in the cultures of respiratory tract secretions showed that 17 patients (77.3%) had eradication and 5 (22.7%) had presumed eradication (i.e. absence of adequate sputum for culture) at day 14, with no cases of persistence or superinfection. In the X-ray exam at day 30, 96 patients (85.0%) had resolution, 11 (9.7%) had improvement and 4 (3.5%) had failure. Treatment-related adverse events were reported in 10 patients (6.6%) and caused study discontinuation in 5 of them (one case of angioedema and one case of anaphylactic reaction were serious). No abnormal changes from baseline were found in laboratory parameters. Azithromycin i.v. followed by oral form given in addition to i.v. ampicillin/sulbactam was effective and well tolerated in patients with CAP who required hospital care.

Effects of fluconazole in the prophylaxis of oropharyngeal candidiasis in patients undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck tumour: results from a double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

Fluconazole is recommended in the prophylaxis of oropharyngeal candidiasis (OPC) in patients undergoing radiotherapy for head-neck tumours; however, the actual effectiveness of fluconazole in this setting remains unclear. Adult patients with cervico-cephalic carcinoma submitted to radical or adjuvant radiotherapy were randomized to 100 mg fluconazole (n = 138) or matched placebo (n = 132) oral suspension once daily from the sixth session of radiotherapy up to the end of treatment. The final analysis of the investigation showed a higher rate of the OPC outbreak-free survival in the fluconazole compared with placebo (P = 0.008 in the log-rank test). The mean time (95% CI) to OPC outbreak was 56 (53-59) days in the fluconazole group and 47 (43-51) days with placebo. The mean duration of radiotherapy was 43.5 and 39.9 days, respectively in the two groups (P = 0.027). Adverse effects were reported in 70.3% of patients in the fluconazole group and in 67.4% with placebo. The results showed prophylaxis with fluconazole given in irradiated patients with head-neck tumours significantly reduces the rate and the time to development of OPC compared with placebo.