Empirical antibiotic treatment strategies for community-acquired pneumonia: a network meta-analysis

This network meta-analysis aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of fluoroquinolone (FQ) monotherapy, β-lactam (BL) monotherapy and β-lactam/macrolide (BL-M) combination therapy in hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).Pubmed, Embase and the Cochrane Library were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing FQ monotherapy, BL monotherapy and BL-M combination therapy up to July 2021. The outcomes of interest included all-cause mortality, clinical success, microbiological success and drug-related adverse events. The summary relative risks (RRs) were estimated using pairwise and Bayesian network meta-analysis.A total of 12 RCTs involving 5009 patients were included. In pairwise meta-analysis, no significant differences were found among FQ monotherapy, BL monotherapy and BL-M dual therapy for all-cause mortality, clinical success or microbiological success. FQ monotherapy was associated with fewer adverse events compared with BL-M therapy (RR 0.80, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.66-0.98). The network meta-analysis showed that there was no significant difference observed among FQ monotherapy, BL monotherapy and BL-M dual therapy regarding all the outcomes.FQ monotherapy, BL monotherapy and BL-M combination therapy demonstrated similar efficacy and safety for hospitalized patients with CAP in this network meta-analysis. Due to the limitations of quality and quantity of the included studies, it is difficult to make a definitive recommendation before more large-scale and high-quality RCTs are conducted.