The hospitalized patients were randomized to antibiotic treatment based on serum procalcitonin levels, or to standard antibiotic therapy administered according to the attending physician.
The use of a topical agent to eradicate bacteria from wounds is potentially cheaper and may well improve antibiotic therapy in the future.
For the longest time, doctors suspected that the condition was caused by persistent, hidden bacterial infections and sometimes prescribed long-term or open-ended antibiotic therapy.
