Authors: Milica Popovic Claudine A Blum Nicole Nigro Beat Mueller Philipp Schuetz Mirjam ChristCrain
Publish Date: 2016/09/10
Volume: 59, Issue: 12, Pages: 2552-2560
Abstract
We have recently shown that adjunct prednisone shortens the time taken to reach clinical stability time to clinical stability TTCS in patients with communityacquired pneumonia CAP Considering the hyperglycaemic effects of prednisone there are concerns about the efficacy and safety of this therapy for diabetic patients with CAP Our objective was to evaluate whether diabetes and/or hyperglycaemia on admission to hospital has an influence on the effect of corticosteroids on outcome in a welldefined cohort of patients with CAPThis is a preplanned subanalysis of a prospective randomised doubleblind placebocontrolled multicentre trial Patients aged 18 years or older with CAP were eligible and were recruited from seven tertiary care hospitals in Switzerland within 24 h of presentation Patients were randomised 11 ratio to receive either 50 mg of prednisone daily for 7 days or placebo Allocation was concealed with a prespecified computergenerated randomisation list Patients treating physicians investigators and data assessors were masked to treatment allocation The primary endpoint was TTCS secondary endpoints were length of stay mortality duration of antibiotic treatment CAP complications and new insulin requirement at day 30 Furthermore we analysed whether these endpoints were influenced by a glycaemic dysregulation during the study timeOf 802 patients randomised n = 402 in the prednisone n = 400 in the placebo group 726 patients were treated per protocol and included in this analysis n = 362 in the prednisone n = 364 in the placebo group Nineteen per cent of 726 patients had diabetes mellitus n = 66 in the prednisone group n = 72 in the placebo group Adjunct prednisone shortened TTCS in diabetic and nondiabetic patients HR 165 95 CI 116 235 p = 0007 130 95 CI 110 153 p = 0002 with no evidence for effect modification by diabetes in interaction analysis p = 044 No difference was found in other clinically relevant endpoints Although adjunct prednisone was associated with glycaemic dysregulation this did not translate into worse clinical outcomes in either group and there was no difference in secondary endpoints
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