These findings also highlighted the potential utility of ceftaroline for the treatment of patients with CAP among populations that were excluded from the phase III clinical trials. However, several

caveats should be noted when interpreting these findings. First, CAPTURE is a non-comparator, convenience sample, observational registry. As such, all findings need to be interpreted with caution prior to full adoption into clinical practice. This is especially true for patients with CABP due to MRSA. The ability this website to effectively use ceftaroline for patients with CABP due to MRSA will be better elucidated upon completion of the current ongoing perspective clinical trial that is assessing its efficacy in patients with CABP due to MRSA. Second, it is difficult to fully discern the effectiveness of ceftaroline in CAPTURE as the BIBW2992 mw combination therapy was

common and sample size was limited (increasing the potential for type II error) across many specialized population assessed. Third, the role of prescribing bias and confounding on the observed outcomes cannot be elucidated clearly due to the sampling method and non-comparative nature of the registry. As the data in CAPTURE registry expands, it would be highly beneficial to ascertain ceftaroline’s “real-world” effectiveness as the number of patients that receive first-line ceftaroline monotherapy across important specialized patient populations increases. It would also be advantageous to include a comparator arm to the registry to measure the effectiveness of ceftaroline relative to other commonly used antibiotic regimens for CAP. As part of these comparator studies, it is important to compare readmission rates between patients

that receive different therapies. This is especially relevant in light of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [25] which will trigger withholding of reimbursement as a penalty for higher-than-expected Thymidine kinase readmission rates among Medicaid patients with pneumonia. Finally, it would also be useful to expand the CAPTURE program to examine the effect of ceftaroline use on antibiotic resistance rates within a given institution. Third-generation cephalosporin use within health systems has been linked to increase prevalence of extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing organisms. Given the similar spectrum of ceftaroline to ceftriaxone, it would be prudent to evaluate the association of ceftaroline use with prevalence of ESBL-producing organisms. Conclusions Community-acquired bacterial pneumonia continues to be a grave public health concern. Ceftaroline is a new addition to our antibiotic treatment arsenal for patients with both CAP and CABP. Data from clinical trials suggest that ceftaroline is non-inferior to ceftriaxone and has a reasonable safety profile [2–4]. These findings have been supported by real-world observational data from CAPTURE [5–10].