Efficacy of high doses of oral penicillin versus amoxicillin in the treatment of adults with non-severe pneumonia attended in the community: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

摘要

BackgroundStreptococcus pneumoniae is the bacterial agent which most frequently causes pneumonia. In some Scandinavian countries, this infection is treated with penicillin V since the resistances of pneumococci to this antibiotic are low. Four reasons justify the undertaking of this study; firstly, the cut-off points which determine whether a pneumococcus is susceptible or resistant to penicillin have changed in 2008 and according to some studies published recently the pneumococcal resistances to penicillin in Spain have fallen drastically, with only 0.9% of the strains being resistant to oral penicillin (minimum inhibitory concentration>2 μg/ml); secondly, there is no correlation between pneumococcal infection by a strain resistant to penicillin and therapeutic failure in pneumonia; thirdly, the use of narrow-spectrum antibiotics is urgently needed because of the dearth of new antimicrobials and the link observed between consumption of broad-spectrum antibiotics and emergence and spread of antibacterial resistance; and fourthly, no clinical study comparing amoxicillin and penicillin V in pneumonia in adults has been published. Our aim is to determine whether high-dose penicillin V is as effective as high-dose amoxicillin for the treatment of uncomplicated community-acquired pneumonia.