The challenge of prescribing treatment for respiratory tract infections

In the treatment of respiratory infections, good clinical and economic outc omes depend on the patient, the pathogen, and the therapeutic protocol. Of these, treatment is the only area in which a clinician can exert control, b ut selecting the optimal therapy can be very challenging. When choosing a t herapy, clinicians should consider the pharmacodynamics of each antibiotic. This may be helpful as calculations of optimal drug exposure based on rati o of pharmacodynamic variables appear to correlate with clinical outcome. A lthough many current therapies are effective in the treatment of respirator y infections several factors, such as the development of more severe illnes ses, increasing antimicrobial resistance, and a growing awareness of the ro le of atypical pathogens, are leading many clinicians to prescribe new, mor e potent antibiotic therapy.