The efficacy of high-dose penicillin G for pneumococcal pneumonia diagnosed based on initial comprehensive assessment at admission: an observational study

Objectives

High-dose penicillin therapy is effective in approximately 90% of pneumococcal pneumonia cases diagnosed based on urinary pneumococcal antigen tests or Gram staining at admission. The efficacy of high-dose penicillin therapy for pneumococcal pneumonia diagnosed based on an initial comprehensive assessment comprising a syndromic approach, Gram staining of sputum and urinary pneumococcal antigen testing was investigated.

Results

Seventy adult patients diagnosed with pneumococcal pneumonia based on an initial comprehensive assessment and treated with high-dose penicillin G at admission were included. The median patient age was 76.5 years, and 37.1% of the patients were women. The urinary pneumococcal antigen test was positive in 67.1% of all patients, and Gram staining of sputum showed that gram-positive cocci were dominant in 58.6% of the patients. The primary outcome was treatment success based on vital signs until day 6. Treatment with high-dose penicillin G was effective in 87.1% of the patients (95% CI 79.1–95.2%), and the proportion of patients who received other antibiotics because of treatment failure with penicillin G was only 5.7%. The efficacy of high-dose penicillin G treatment for pneumococcal pneumonia diagnosed based on a comprehensive assessment at admission may be comparable to that in previous reports.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-018-3510-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.