Evidence Hub

Efficacy of early steroid use in Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia

H. Kim, M. Song, Yong Wook Kim, Kyoung Sim Kim, Eun-Young Kim, Young Kim, Hae In Jang, Hyung Min Cho

2017

85 participants · 2 citations

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether or not the early use of steroid is useful for treating Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia.

Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 85 patients with M. pneumoniae pneumonia admitted to Gwangju Christian Hos-pital between September 2015 and April 2016. A total of 85 patients were enrolled. Of these, 33 were treated with steroids (methyl-prednisolone 1 mg/kg/day), while 52 were not; both were treated with macrolides. The overall duration of fever was compared be-tween the 2 groups and findings on chest radiographs were evaluated for their deterioration.

Results: The duration of fever after admission (1.36±0.92 days vs. 2.17±1.30 days, P=0.003) and the overall duration of fever (4.42±2.13 days vs. 6.07±2.59 days, P=0.003) were significantly lower in the steroid group. The duration of fever before admission was not different between the steroid and macrolide groups (3.06±1.74 days vs. 3.90±2.21 days, P=0.068). On chest radiographs taken 3 days later, 1 of 33 patients in the steroid group and 5 of 50 patients in the macrolide group worsened, although there was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups (P=0.395). There was no significant difference in the duration of hospi-talization between the 2 groups (6.72±1.54 days vs. 6.92±1.87 days, P=0.618).

Conclusion: Early administration of steroids on patients with M. pneumoniae pneumonia reduced the duration of fever, but there was no difference in duration of…

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free