Moving from empirical to early documented antibiotic therapy in ICU patients with pneumonia’

In this presentation, Pr Pierre-Francois Laterre briefly reviews current practice for the antimicrobial treatment of hospitalised pneumonia patients. He points to the need to further reduce antibiotic use in HAP and VAP patients by moving from empirical to early document antibiotic therapy. Pr Laterre illustrates how and for which patients he uses the BioFire Pneumonia plus Panel. A particular focus is made on COVID-19 patients, for whom a sparse use of empiric antibiotics is key due to a high probability of the patients to develop VAP during their ICU stay. This presentation was part of BioMérieux's Industry Symposium at ECCMID 2021.