Antibiotic treatment of bacterial gastroenteritis

Antibiotic treatment is important in certain etiologies of bacterial gastroenteritis, both for clinical improvement and for eradication of the causative organism from stools, which is important epidemiologically. The etiology, however, is seldom known at presentation in sporadic cases of diarrhea. Thus the decision to initiate antibiotic therapy and the choice of the specific antimicrobial agents should be made on a clinical basis, before culture results are available.