Therapy of acute gastroenteritis: role of antibiotics

Acute infectious diarrhoea remains a very common health problem, even in the industrialized world. One of the dilemmas in assessing patients with acute diarrhoea is deciding when to test for aetiological agents and when to initiate antimicrobial therapy. The management and therapy of acute gastroenteritis is discussed in two epidemiological settings: community-acquired diarrhoea and travellers' diarrhoea. Antibiotic therapy is not required in most patients with acute gastroenteritis, because the illness is usually self-limiting. Antimicrobial therapy can also lead to adverse events, and unnecessary treatments add to resistance development. Nevertheless, empirical antimicrobial therapy can be necessary in certain situations, such as patients with febrile diarrhoeal illness, with fever and bloody diarrhoea, symptoms persisting for >1 week, or immunocompromised status.