Research of urinary tract infections in family medicine physicians' offices--empiric antimicrobial therapy of urinary tract infections--Croatian experience.

In the period between October 1st and November 30th, 2006, we investigated a total of 3188 episodes of UTI (802 among males; 2386 among females) recorded in 108 family medicine offices in 20 cities in Croatia. The most common UTIs in women were acute uncomplicated cystitis (62%), complicated UTIs - cystitis and pyelonephritis (14%), urethritis (9%), acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis (6%), recurrent cystitis (5%), asymptomatic bacteriuria (3%) and recurrent pyelonephritis. The most common UTIs in men were complicated UTIs - cystitis and pyelonephritis (48%), urethritis (25%), prostatitis (24%) and asymptomatic bacteriuria (3%). Etiological diagnosis was made in 999 (31%) UTI episodes before antimicrobial therapy was given. The most frequently isolated causative pathogens were Escherichia coli (77%), Enterococcus faecalis (9%), Proteus mirabilis (5%), Klebsiella spp (3%), Streptococcus agalactiae (3%) and Enterobacter (1%). Antimicrobial drug was administered in 2939 (92.19%) UTI episodes, in 1940 (66.01%) as empirical therapy, and in 999 (34%) as targeted antimicrobial therapy. The most commonly administered drug in empirical therapy for acute uncomplicated cystitis, recurrent cystitis and urethritis in women was cephalexin, for acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis and complicated UTIs in women co-amoxiclav, and for UTIs in males ciprofloxacin. The results of this research of 3188 UTI episodes in family medicine physicians' offices provide a confirmatory answer to question whether empirical antimicrobial therapy of UTI prescribed by Croatian family practitioners is in accordance with the national guidelines.

Safety and effectiveness of azithromycin in the treatment of respiratory infections in children.

OBJECTIVES: To describe clinical effectiveness of azithromycin in the management of respiratory tract infections in children up to 12 years of age; to examine duration of symptoms after commencement of therapy and to mark adverse events possibly caused by treatment with azithromycin. METHODS: The overall ITT population included 156 children (65 with acute pharyngitis/tonsillitis (AP), 32 with acute otitis media (AOM), and 59 with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI)). Clinical effectiveness was based on results of improvement and cure after 3 day's treatment with azithromycin, calculating the clinical score for each diagnosis before treatment, at the 4th day (end of the therapy) and at the 12th or 28th day (end of the study). To better estimate patients' (parents') satisfaction with treatment, a diary was provided for each child and parents recorded the days when a child felt relief of symptoms. RESULTS: In this study azithromycin led to relief of symptoms after 3 days in 89.1% of patients. Antibiotics had been prescribed within 1 year prior to inclusion in 74.4% of patients and 29.5% had previously been treated with macrolides. Clinical effectiveness in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population was 94.8% and there were 5.2% failures. Overall, 18 (11.5%) patients reported 25 adverse events (AEs) and nine AEs were characterized as possibly, probably or definitely related to azithromycin. The most common adverse events were diarrhea in nine (5.8%) cases, vomiting in six (3.8%) and abdominal pain reported in four (2.6 %) patients. CONCLUSION: Results of this study show that azithromycin in the treatment of children with respiratory tract infections has high clinical effectiveness and a small number of adverse events. However, major limitations of the study are its design as a non-comparative, observational, postmarketing study and that the etiology of infections was not confirmed. Despite this, it can be concluded that azithromycin is a reliable antibiotic treatment for children's respiratory tract infections, giving fast resolution of symptoms with few adverse events in patients with presumed bacterial infections.