BACKGROUND: @entity884 has a high morbidity and lethality. Therefore antibiotic treatment has to be intravenous to achieve high blood levels and has to last several weeks without an interruption of treatment at the weekends. @entity1 SELECTION FOR OUTPATIENT THERAPY: It is therefore crucial to select the @entity1 group that is suited for an outpatient, antibiotic therapy very carefully. In general only hemodynamically stable @entity1 without complications in whom the responsible organism has been identified should be considered. TREATMENT: From a pharmacological point of view intravenous or intramuscular application for the complete duration of therapy is obligatory. @entity884 caused by @entity114 -susceptible streptococci, the biggest group of organisms responsible for @entity884 , can be treated with Ceftriaxon once daily for 4 weeks. For other organisms there are at present no data available which support the feasibility of an outpatient therapy. In particular antibiotic therapy with a complex regimen for those organisms is not practicable for outpatient usage. Possibly, in the near future computer controlled pumps might overcome this disadvantage. LIMITS: Every outpatient therapy should be initiated under inpatient conditions and only after an initial response to the antibiotic therapy continued in an outpatient setting. Today reliable outpatient therapy and follow-up 7 days a week under the given outpatient infrastructure is problematic and remains an exception. However, considering cost-effectiveness outpatient as compared to inpatient antibiotic therapy could be an interesting economically advantageous alternative.

[Possibilities and limits of outpatient antibiotic therapy of XXXX ].

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['PATIENT', 'patients', 'patient'] @entity114 :: ('MESH:D010406', 'Chemical') :: ['penicillin'] @entity884 :: ('MESH:D004696', 'Disease') :: ['Infective endocarditis', 'endocarditis', 'Endocarditis']
@entity884 :: (MESH:D004696,Disease) :: ['infective endocarditis']
