Providers often tell patients to take the full script of prescribed antibiotics, even if symptoms subside prior to that time. However, STAT reports many healthcare experts say this methodology is misguided.
Here are five notes:
1. The healthcare industry has launched information campaigns for years, recommending patients take antibiotics until the vial is empty. Some medical personnel say following this protocol may "exacerbate" antibiotic resistance, STAT reports.
2. CDC launched its Get Smart campaign to promote appropriate antibiotic use. The campaign presently encourages patients to not skip doses and continue antibiotics until completion.
3. Louis Rice, chairman of the medicine department at Providence, R.I.-based Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School, told STAT, this guidance "never made sense. It doesn't make any sense today." In 2007 and 2008, Dr. Rice questioned infectious disease physicians and researchers on the practice.e was among the first in the industry to do so. Today, more physicians are mimicking Dr. Price's thinking regarding this practice.
4. Dr. Price and others are not questioning antibiotic's effectiveness in treating infections. However, the concern rests in antibiotic resistance which kills 23,000 people throughout the United States every year.
5. In recent years, the National Institutes of Health has funded research to see if truncating different condition's treatment duration would prove more effective. The research has shown many infections, but not all, can go away more quickly than previously perceived. Dr. Rice told STAT, "I'm not here saying that every infection can be treated for two days or three days. I'm just saying: Let's figure it out."
