Identifying heterogeneity of treatment effect for antibiotic duration in bloodstream infection: an exploratory post-hoc analysis of the BALANCE randomised clinical trial.

Abstract in brief

• The BALANCE trial found that a 7-day antibiotic treatment for uncomplicated non-bacterial bloodstream infections is just as effective as a 14-day treatment, but the researchers wanted to see if specific patient groups might still benefit from longer treatment.
• They analyzed data from 3,581 patients using various clinical decision rules to assess the impact of treatment duration on 90-day mortality, but none of the rules showed significant differences between the two treatment durations for different risk groups.
• Overall, the study concluded that the 7-day treatment is adequate for most patients, as the clinical decision rules did not identify any subgroup that would benefit from extending treatment to 14 days.