Bottom Line
For hospitalized adults with mild to moderately severe CAP, five to seven days of treatment, depending on the antibiotic selected, appears to be effective in most cases. Patients should be afebrile for 48 to 72 hours and demonstrate signs of clinical stability before therapy is discontinued. TH
Kelly Cunningham, MD, and Shelley Ellis, MD, MPH, are members of the Section of Hospital Medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc, serves as the section chief.
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