Letter
Severity of community-acquired pneumonia treated with low-dose adjunctive corticosteroid
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* Corresponding author: Masaru Suzuki masaruszk@aol.com
1 Department of Psychiatry, Tokai University School of Medicine, 143 Shimokasuya, Isehara, Kanagawa 259-1193, Japan
2 Department of Internal Medicine, Kanto Central Hospital 6-25-1 Kamiyoga, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 158-8531, Japan
3 Medical Oncology Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
4 Meakins-Christie Laboratories, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
5 Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Tokai University School of Medicine, 143 Shimokasuya, Isehara, Kanagawa 259-1193, Japan
Critical Care 2011, 15:451 doi:10.1186/cc10500
Published: 8 November 2011First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
We read with interest the report of the randomized double-blind controlled trial by Fernández-Serrano and colleagues [1] suggesting that the administration of methyl-prednisolone (MPDN) with ceftriaxone plus levofloxacin improves clinical variables in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Compared with randomly controlled studies in which patients benefited from corticosteroid treatment [2-4], all patients of this study received the same antibiotics. It is striking that this study has overcome the problem that choice and dose of antibiotics may influence results.