How short is long enough for treatment of bone and joint infection?

Abstract

We decided to continue antimicrobials just to be on the safe side" is a phrase one often hears when a patient with a severe disease is being treated. The words are not always those of an inexperienced physician in training, but those of a senior consultant. The flaw in the rationale behind this is the presumption that a longer course will benefit the patient more than a short course. Sometimes this holds true, but usually it does not. A spectacular example is meningococcal meningitis in which more than one prospective study shows that a single injection of long-acting penicillin, chloramphenicol, or in more recent studies, cephalosporin cures the great majority of patients [1, 2]. However, this regimen should certainly not be tried for other types of bacterial meningitis. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.