Impact of macrolide therapy on mortality in severe sepsis caused by pneumonia.

Treatment with macrolides has been shown to have beneficial effects in chronic inflammatory airway diseases such as diffuse panbronchiolitis [2] and cystic fibrosis [3]. Whether adding macrolide therapy to the antibiotic regimen in patients with sepsis and CAP will result in a better outcome cannot be concluded from the study performed by RESTREPO et al. [1]. Their nonrandomised study did not provide information regarding clinical decisions such as why some patients were given macrolide therapy and others were not. Moreover, we are not informed about the presence of infections caused by Legionella pneumophila type 1 which are relatively common in patients with severe CAP [4]. Adding macrolide therapy is one of the choices of treatment in infections caused by this microorganism.