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Dilip Nathwani, FRCP(Ed); Anne Boyter, MSc, MRPharmS; Peter G. Fegan, MBChB; Peter Davey, MD
Dundee, Scotland

Arch Intern Med. 1996;156(11):1235.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Ramirez and colleagues¹ recently reported the reduction in hospital stay and efficacy of an early switch from intravenous cephalosporin therapy to oral cefixime therapy in patients with noncomplicated community-acquired bacterial pneumonia. We wish to raise a number of issues pertinent to oral switch therapy and clinical practice in the United Kingdom.

A recent European survey revealed that in the United Kingdom 60% of all in-hospital antibiotic prescriptions are oral as opposed to our European² and North American counterparts, where inpatient parenteral therapy is more commonly prescribed. Indeed, in our own infectious disease unit, which is a tertiary referral center, over a 1-year period only 20% of antibiotic prescriptions were intravenous, and the median duration of hospital stay for patients receiving antibiotics intravenously was 3 days. Despite the encouraging evidence for the use of the oral route within our own unit and other hospitals in the United Kingdom, the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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