Comparative Efficacy and Safety of Hydrocortisone vs Dexamethasone in Severe Community Acquired Pneumonia: A Randomized Controlled Trial

This is a Prospective, Open label, Randomised Control Trial of Parallel Group to compare Efficacy and Safety of Hydrocortisone vs Dexamethasone in Patients with Severe Community Acquired Pneumonia. Patients diagnosed with Severe Community Acquired Pneumonia will be included in this study after excluding patients meeting exclusion criteria. Patients will be randomized into 2 arms using computer generated randomization sequence and allocation concealment will be done through SNOSE technique. All patients who will be recruited in the study will be explained about the study , given a patient information sheet and they will sign a consent form provided both in hindi and english.

Patients in the intervention arm will recieve Dexamethasone and those in control arm will recieve Hydrocortisone. Our primary objective is to compare the length of hospital stay between the 2 groups. Secondary objectives are to compare the all cause mortality on day 28  and day 60, the requirement and duration of requirement of vasopressors , non invasive ventilation and mechanical ventilation and to compare the adverse effects in terms of hyperglycemia ,hospital acquired infections ,Gastro intestinal  bleeding and dyselectrolytemia.