Bronchitis is a disease which affects many people and has affected one person at least once in a lifetime. Until now doctors have been prescribing antibiotics for bronchitis but researchers have proven that antibiotics are not so necessary in treating this condition and using them frequently only helps drug resistance to develop.



Besides the drug-based on treatment the patient should know that rest and well hydration are essential for a quick recovery. Fever is treated with ASA and acetaminophen. Because bronchitis gives cough the patient should take antitussive medication like: chlophedianol, levopropoxyphene, dextromethorphan, and codeine. They will act upon the medullary cough center and will suppress the cough reflex. In case the patient coughs and has bronchial secretions which have to be expelled the doctor will prescribe expectorants. They are decreasing the viscosity of the secretions helping them to be expelled better when coughing. In the composition of expectorants iodides, ammonium chloride, terpin hydrate, syrup of ipecac, guaifenesin, and even creosote can be found. In some cases acacia, glycerin, honey, or an extract of Prunus can be added to the composition of the expectorant.

In case the patient has purulent acute bronchitis, antibiotic treatment is necessary. Tetracycline, erythromycin, amoxicillin and ampicillin are suitable for treating this type of bronchitis as they are active upon the bacteria responsible for producing this disease.

In patients who have chronic bronchitis an exacerbation of the symptoms which contain purulent sputum seems to be worse than in those who have mucoid sputum. These symptoms can be managed easily and will disappear by the end of day five if treatment is followed exactly.

Studies have to be done in order to see whether antibiotic treatment is really necessary in these patients who suffer of bronchitis or it can be used only in severe cases. The idea is to avoid using antibiotics in excess as multi drug resistance can develop and soon the doctors will not be able to treat as common infection due to a lack of active antibiotics.

As every year more than 10 million patients are treated in the emergency room for bronchitis with antibiotics, a group of researchers decided to see whether antibiotics like azithromycin are effective and really useful in treating bronchitis. The study was multicenter, randomized, and double-blind.

448 patients which presented cough with or without sputum were taken in consideration for this study. From the whole group, 340 were diagnosed with bronchitis, and 220 met the criteria for randomization. In the end189 patients completed the study. From these 189 patients, 97 received 250 mg/day of azithromycin, and 92 received 250 mg/day of vitamin C. Besides these two medications dextromethorphan syrup and an albuterol inhaler were also given to the patients who used them every 6 hours as needed. At 3 and 7 days the cough symptoms and limitations on activity were assessed. At the end of the study the researchers concluded that no statistical differences existed between the two groups. This means that antibiotic treatment is not so necessary for the cases of bronchitis and antitussive medication and beta2-agonists are the only ones who are really worth to be taken along with keeping a good hydration.