It depends on the type of infection The recent controversial article in The BMJ 1 wasn’t the first commentary to suggest that we should abandon the notion of a course of antibiotics and rethink the whole strategy of duration of therapy for infections.2 The objectives of treatment go beyond “cure” (kill the pathogen) to include reducing symptom severity and duration, the chances of relapse, and transmission to other people. This can be achieved by suppressing the growth of the pathogen until the host immune system destroys it. How the concept of “the course” evolved is not entirely clear,2 but two strategies probably underlie it. These are to ensure a total adequate dose by spreading a potentially toxic drug over time to avoid high peak levels, and to reduce the chance of resistance evolving within the patient during treatment. We already have information about the duration of treatment needed to get a high probability of cure for some infections. This ranges from a single dose (eg, chlamydia, donovanosis, primary syphilis) through a …

中文翻译：

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我们是否应该放弃抗菌素的“完成过程”？

这取决于感染的类型BMJ 1中最近有争议的文章并不是第一个提出建议，我们应该放弃抗生素疗程的概念，重新考虑感染治疗的整个策略的评论。2治疗不仅仅包括“治愈”（杀死病原体），还包括减少症状的严重程度和持续时间，复发的机会以及传播给其他人。这可以通过抑制病原体的生长直至宿主免疫系统破坏病原体来实现。“课程”的概念如何演变尚不完全清楚2，但可能有两种策略在其中。这些是通过随着时间的流逝散布有潜在毒性的药物来确保总的足够剂量，以避免高的峰值水平，并减少治疗期间患者体内耐药性发展的机会。我们已经掌握了一些感染的高治愈可能性所需的治疗时间信息。范围从单次剂量（例如衣原体，伴侣病，原发性梅毒）到…