Abstract: The purpose of this study was to compare the curative effect and the medicalexpenditure of sequentialtherapy with intravenous infusion of ceftriaxone followed by oralceftibuten and intravenous infusion of ceftriaxone alone in treatment of 34 patients with medium or serious lower respiratory infection.The resultsshowed that :The over alleffective rate ofthe sequential group and theintravenous infusion alone group was 88.24 % ,there was no difference between two group (P>0.05) ;the total medical expenditure ofthe sequential group and the intravenous infusion alone group was (2 165.36 ± 539.78) yuan and (2 698.14 ±765.84) yuan respectively ,there was statistical difference between two groups (P< 0.05).Sequentialtherapy and intravenousinfusion alone have similar clinical efficacy.But the sequential therapy compared with intravenous infusion alone reduced medical expenditure significantly.

Key words: lower-respiratory infection, ceftibuten, ceftriaxone, step-down therapy