The length of time antibiotic treatment, which is administered directly into the blood stream, is needed to clear an acute chest infection in people with cystic fibrosis

Chest infections in people with cystic fibrosis are treated aggressively to prevent further damage to the lungs. This has resulted in better survival rates for people with cystic fibrosis in recent years. There are no clear guidelines on how long chest infections should be treated with intravenous antibiotics. Different centres tend to use different treatment regimens. Most centres use 10 or 14 days, extending them to 21 days if there is no improvement. We could not find any studies comparing 10 days treatment with 14 days or longer treatment. Shorter duration of treatment may be better as these courses of treatment are easier for people to complete. They are also less expensive and cause fewer drug reactions than longer treatments. However, it is not clear if shorter treatment is enough to treat infections adequately. It is also not clear whether shorter treatment results in early recurrence or increased frequency of chest infections. Further research is needed to find the optimum duration for treating chest infection.