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Bronchodilators and Antibiotics in the Treatment of Acute Bronchitis
Dana E. King, MD
Arch Fam Med. 1996;5(2):86.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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CONTROVERSY CONTINUES on the issue of whether bronchodilators or antibiotics or both should be used in the treatment of acute bronchitis. Both have been used in clinical practice before their effectiveness has been completely evaluated. In this issue of the ARCHIVES, Mainous et al1 document the extensive use of antibiotics in Medicaid patients with a diagnosis of acute bronchitis. Antibiotics alone were used in 61% of encounters, bronchodilators in combination with antibiotics in 14%, and bronchodilators alone in 3%. The authors suggest that current practices in the treatment of acute bronchitis in ambulatory settings do not integrate evidence that antibiotics are probably unwarranted, and physicians do not seem to have incorporated new clinical evidence of the effectiveness of bronchodilators.
As reviewed recently by Gonzales and Sande,2 reasons to avoid antibiotics include adverse side effects of medication, induction of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and lack of sufficient evidence in randomized controlled
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
East Carolina University School of Medicine Greenville, NC
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