Pneumonia impedes recovery from acute stroke and contributes to poor clinical outcomes. Two recent clinical trials demonstrate that antibiotics commonly used to treat stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP) neither reduce the frequency of pneumonia nor improve outcome after stroke when administered in a preventive manner. These findings necessitate fundamental reassessment of our current concepts of SAP.
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Acknowledgements
A.M. is supported by the German Research Foundation (grants Exc257, SFB-TRR84 and SFB-TRR43) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01EO0801). C.J.S. receives funding from the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.
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A.M. receives funding from Thermo Fisher Scientific, and also has patent EP1480646 issued for anti-infective agents and/or immunomodulators used for preventive therapy following an acute cerebrovascular accident. C.J.S. declares no competing interests.
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Meisel, A., Smith, C. Preventive antibiotics for stroke-associated pneumonia. Nat Rev Neurol 11, 672–673 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2015.220
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2015.220
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