Clarithromycin for improved clinical outcomes in community-acquired pneumonia: A subgroup analysis of the ACCESS trial.

Background: In the ACCESS trial, the addition of clarithromycin to standard-of-care antibiotics (SoC) enhanced early clinical response and attenuated the inflammatory burden in adults with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) requiring hospitalisation. A post-hoc analysis was performed to investigate the benefit in specific subgroups.

Methods: The primary endpoint comprised two conditions to be met during the first 72 h: ≥50% decrease in respiratory symptom severity score; and any of ≥30% decrease in sequential organ failure assessment score and favourable change in the kinetics of procalcitonin (PCT, defined as ≥80% PCT decrease or PCT <0.25 ng/mL). In this exploratory post-hoc analysis, achievement of the study composite primary endpoint was compared between the two treatment groups within subsets differentiated by demographic characteristics, comorbidities, CAP severity, baseline laboratory findings and corticosteroid co-administration. The impact of clarithromycin treatment on the need for mechanical ventilation (MV) in all subgroups was also analysed.

Results: The addition of clarithromycin significantly increased the proportion of patients achieving the primary endpoint across all subgroups and decreased the need for MV in 19 out of the 37 subgroups studied. For instance, the primary endpoint was attained in 32.7% of placebo-treated patients and in 67% of clarithromycin-treated patients with CURB-65 score ≥2 (P<0.0001), whereas MV was required in 18.8% and 7.4% of patients, respectively (P=0.022). The addition of corticosteroids alone was not as clinically advantageous as the use of clarithromycin alone, when added to SoC.

Conclusion: Adding clarithromycin to SoC in the ACCESS trial achieved early clinical anti-inflammatory responses and decreased the need for MV in subgroups of hospitalised patients with CAP.