Journal Club: Procalcitonin and Antibiotic Stewardship

On 9/24 journal club, we will be critically appraising, “Efficacy and safety of procalcitonin guidance in reducing the duration of antibiotic treatment in critically ill patients: a randomised, controlled, open-label trial” by de Jong et al. The objectives are as follows:

1. Understand the difference between intention-to-treat and per-protocol analysis

2. Calculate NNT and NNH for the study’s primary outcomes

3. Decide if this study would change your clinical practice

Since this will be happening at BOTH UH and the VA, both groups will decide for the final objective how this article would or would not change clinical practice.

Stay tuned for the Journal Club recap about what each group decided and why.

We also encourage you to take a look at Duke’s Evidence-Based Practice website, specifically checking out the videos:

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The NNT Tutorial

Intention-to-Treat Analysis

A tutorial of the NNT, or the Number Needed to Treat, a biostatistics term to compare efficacy of different medications.

Intention to treat analysis is explained and its utility is demonstrated in this video