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Treatment of Acute BronchitisThere's Much Work to Be Done
Harold A. Williamson, Jr, MD, MSPH
Arch Fam Med. 1996;5(2):84-85.
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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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WE KNOW a lot more about acute bronchitis than we did a decade ago, mostly because of work by family physicians who have been dissatisfied with current treatment options. The article by Mainous and colleagues in this issue of the ARCHIVES expresses impatience about a barely perceptible therapeutic evolution from antibiotics to bronchodilators. Using Kentucky Medicaid data, the authors demonstrated that antibiotics are still widely prescribed for acute bronchitis, and bronchodilators are not. Limitations of the study, including the use of a secondary data set and its attendant problems, are appropriately discussed by the authors, but no one should seriously wonder if there has been a wholesale switch from antibiotics to bronchodilators that has been missed by this study's methods. The study raises several important questions about evolving prescribing habits for bronchitis and about physician behavior in general.
How good is the evidence that antibiotics are not helpful for acute
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
University of Missouri School of Medicine Columbia
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