The indication of the combined use of adrenocortical steroids and antibiotics in infectious diseases.

It is needless to say that the antibiotics is of prime importance in the treatment of various infectious diseases. But its management of exhausted host has been less evaluated in the past years. Adrenocortical hormone has been known to modify factors of the host in a few directions. Based on this idea, it would be quite reasonable to use adrenocorticosteroid hormone concomitantly with antibiotics in the treatment of various infectious diseases in order to overcome inflammatory process rapidly. For the past 10 years, we have experienced the treatment of the various infectious diseases with the combined therapy of adrenocortical steroids and antibiotics. Its efficacy was evaluated by fever curve, disapearance of invading organism, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, improvement of exudate if any and radiological findings. Among 182 cases thus treated by combined therapy, 80 (43.9%) were thought to be effective (Table 1). The analysis revealed that anti-inflammatory action of adrenocorticosteroid hormone was non-specific. Our experiences indicate this hormone therapy to "certain conditions" elicited to host by infectious process but not by the certain special type of invading organism nor specified diseases. Our five indications are as follows (Table 2).