Short-course treatment for community-acquired pneumonia in adults aged less than 65 years in Japan: A descriptive
Mikiyasu Sakai1, Takamasa Sakai2, Fumiko Ohtsu2
1Graduate School of Pharmacy, Meijo University, 150 Yagotoyama, Tempaku-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 468-8503, Japan; Department of Pharmacy, Toyota Kosei Hospital, 500-1, Ibobara, Jousui-cho, Toyota, 470-0396, Japan.
Introduction:
In community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), short-course treatment is not inferior in effectiveness compared to conventional treatment durations, and clinical guidelines recommend 5-7-day-long treatments. However, it remains unclear how widely this practice is adopted in Japan. This study aimed to clarify the treatment duration of CAP in Japan using a large healthcare claims database.
Methods:
We used health insurance claims data provided by JMDC Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) and included patients aged 18-64 years diagnosed with CAP who began antibiotic treatment between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2022. Short-course treatment was defined as ≤ 7 d. Analyses were conducted separately for inpatient and outpatient cases, and the annual trends were also investigated.
Results:
Overall, 25,572 patients (3367 inpatients and 22,205 outpatients) were included in the analysis. Short-course treatment was administered to 1087 (32 %) inpatients and 15,614 (70 %) outpatients. The proportion of short-course treatments during the 10-year study period was 31-35 % for inpatient cases and 67-72 % for outpatient cases, with no marked changes over the years.
Conclusions:
The proportion of inpatients receiving short-course treatments for CAP was low. In Japan, especially for inpatient cases, further efforts are required to optimize the duration of CAP treatment.
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