They encourage clinicians to consider empiric antifungal therapy in all patients at risk until the pathogen is identified.

Clindamycin should not be used as a single agent as empiric therapy for abdominal infections.

Microbiology of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia in persons with and at risk for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection: implications for rational empiric antibiotic therapy.

Once they do, empiric therapy may be switched to specific antibiotic therapy targeted to the specific causative organism and its sensitivities to antibiotics.

Ampicillin/sulbactam is also used when the cause of an infection is not known (empiric therapy).

In these cases, the most appropriate course may be to initiate empiric therapy prior to biopsy.

The traditional empiric therapy is irradiation, with the daily dose governed by the presumed radiosensitivity of the tumor.

In both cases, a person's risk factors for different organisms must be remembered when choosing the initial antibiotics (called empiric therapy).

Initial empiric therapy should include two or more drugs (AI): clarithromycin or azithromycin plus ethambutol.

Amikacin may be combined with a beta-lactam antibiotic for empiric therapy for people with neutropenia and fever.