Duration of antibiotic therapy: with or without biomarkers?

Antimicrobial resistance has emerged as a critical global health challenge. Significant variability in antibiotic prescribing practices underscores the urgent need for high-quality evidence to inform optimal antibiotic prescribing policies. The ideal duration of antimicrobial therapy remains uncertain, and a one-size-fits-all approach is far from ideal. In this review, we examine bacterial growth kinetics and antibiotic pharmacodynamics and explore various strategies for determining the duration of antibiotic therapy: fixed duration, biomarker-guided, clinical course-based, and the more recent double-trigger approach.