Study Design and Methods
exacerbations of bronchiectasis, bronchiectasis exacerbations, bronchiectasis, purulent, mucopurulent, asthma, asthma and bronchiectasis, COPD
COPD, BRONCHIECTASIS, ASTHMA
This was a post hoc analysis of the meropenem study exploring the impact of shortening antibiotic therapy for exacerbations of bronchiectasis requiring intravenous antibiotic therapy [The Meropenem study was a randomised control trial consisting of 90 participants that all received intravenous antibiotic treatment for bronchiectasis exacerbations. This post hoc study analysed the data from the meropenem study looking at the response to treatment comparing people with bronchiectasis with and without comorbid asthma. The participants were split into two groups: group 1 (asthma and bronchiectasis) and group 2 (bronchiectasis).Asthma was diagnosed in this study based on respiratory clinic diagnosis and these patients had both asthma and bronchiectasis coded on their diagnostic list. Patients with COPD were excluded. In this post hoc study the authors did not explore the asthma diagnosis further.Meropenem (2 g TDS) was chosen for the intravenous antibiotic treatment as it is broad spectrum and was suitable for all participants. All participants were able to complete the full treatment and did not receive any other treatment for their bronchiectasis exacerbations, in particular no patient received concomitant systemic corticosteroids.The authors assessed response to treatment at day 14 compared with baseline before antibiotic therapy by sputum purulence (purulent to mucopurulent, mucoid or no sputum; or mucopurulent to mucoid or no sputum) [