Short-course treatment for community-acquired pneumonia in adults aged less than 65 years in Japan: A descriptive study using large healthcare claims database.

INTRODUCTION

In community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), short-course treatment is not inferior in effectiveness compared to conventional treatment durations, and clinical guidelines recommend 5-7-day-long treatments. However, it remains unclear how widely this practice is adopted in Japan. This study aimed to clarify the treatment duration of CAP in Japan using a large healthcare claims database.

METHODS

We used health insurance claims data provided by JMDC Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) and included patients aged 18-64 years diagnosed with CAP who began antibiotic treatment between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2022. Short-course treatment was defined as ≤ 7 d. Analyses were conducted separately for inpatient and outpatient cases, and the annual trends were also investigated.

RESULTS

Overall, 25,572 patients (3367 inpatients and 22,205 outpatients) were included in the analysis. Short-course treatment was administered to 1087 (32 %) inpatients and 15,614 (70 %) outpatients. The proportion of short-course treatments during the 10-year study period was 31-35 % for inpatient cases and 67-72 % for outpatient cases, with no marked changes over the years.

CONCLUSIONS

The proportion of inpatients receiving short-course treatments for CAP was low. In Japan, especially for inpatient cases, further efforts are required to optimize the duration of CAP treatment.