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Empiric antimicrobial therapy is typically broad-spectrum, in that it treats both a multitude of either Gram-positive and/or Gram-negative bacteria, diverse fungi or parasites respectively. When more information is known (as from a blood culture ), treatment may be changed to a narrow-spectrum antimicrobial which more specifically targets the ...
Empiric treatment is often started before laboratory microbiological reports are available. This might be for common or relatively minor infections based on clinical guidelines (such as community-acquired pneumonia), or for serious infections, such as sepsis or bacterial meningitis, in which delayed treatment carries substantial risks. [1]
Empiric antibiotic therapy refers to the use of antibiotics to treat a suspected bacterial infection despite lack of a specific bacterial diagnosis. Definitive diagnosis of the species of bacteria often occurs through culture of blood, sputum, or urine, and can be delayed by 24 to 72 hours. [ 5 ]
Directed therapy refers to the treatment of infections based on specific knowledge of what the causal agent is able to be treated with. It is the opposite to empiric therapy, which refers to the treatment of infections based on the clinical suspicion about what the agent should be able to be treated with, based on experience or guidelines.
A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, treatment and therapy, are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or T x. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different types of therapy. Not all therapies are effective.
When an infection is suspected of being responsible for an illness but the responsible pathogen has not been identified, an empiric therapy is adopted. [35] This involves the administration of a broad-spectrum antibiotic based on the signs and symptoms presented and is initiated pending laboratory results that can take several days. [34] [35]
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Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the terms evidence and empirical are to be defined. Often different fields work with quite different ...