Cutting antibiotics duration bad for kids with ear infections

Reducing the duration of antibiotics can do more harm than good when treating children with ear infections, warns a study.

When treating children between 9 and 23 months of age with antibiotics for ear infections, a shortened course has worse clinical outcomes without reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance or adverse events, showed results of the trial involving over 500 kids. 

"Given significant concerns regarding overuse of antibiotics and increased antibiotic resistance, we conducted this trial to see if reducing the duration of antibiotic treatment would be equally effective along with decreased antibiotic resistance and fewer adverse reactions," said Alejandro Hoberman, Professor at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the US.

"The results of this study clearly show that for treating ear infections in children between 9 and 23 months of age, a five-day course of antibiotic offers no benefit in terms of adverse events or antibiotic resistance," Hoberman noted.

"Though we should be rightly concerned about the emergence of resistance overall for this condition, the benefits of the 10-day regimen greatly outweigh the risks," Hoberman added.

In the current trial, 520 children with acute otitis media were randomly assigned to either a standard 10-day regimen of the antibiotic amoxicillin-clavulanate or a shortened five-day treatment followed by five days of placebo.

Acute otitis media is a common bacterial infection of the middle ear behind the ear drum in kids which causes it to become painfully inflamed.

The risk of treatment failure in the five-day group (34 per cent) was more than twice as much the risk in the 10-day group (16 per cent), according to the results published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

When they tested the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through back of the nose swabs, there was no decrease in the 5-day group as might have been expected with a shorter duration of antibiotics.

Also, reduced-duration antibiotics did not decrease the risk of frequent adverse events like diarrhea or diaper rash, the study said.

this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations

https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes 

https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement

Childhood ear infections may now be prevented

A new study has offered some hints to help doctors to develop more effective treatments to prevent one of the most common childhood illnesses, which is ear infection.

Researchers have discovered a gene region that raises the risk a child will have a middle ear infection, known to doctors as acute otitis media (AOM) and known to parents as one reason for a screaming, unhappy preschooler.

“Parents and pediatricians are all too familiar with this painful childhood ear infection, it’s the most frequent reason children receive antibiotics,” said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, adding, “Although microbes cause this condition, it’s been well known that genetics also plays a role. This is the first and largest genetic study focused on risk susceptibility for acute otitis media.”

Hakonarson and colleagues from CHOP collaborated with Dutch researchers, led by Gijs van Ingen and colleagues from the University Medical Center, Rotterdam.

The researchers performed a genome wide association study (GWAS) on two discovery cohorts with DNA samples from 11,000 children. They found that an association between AOM and a site on chromosome 6 containing the gene FNDC1, and then replicated the finding in an independent pediatric cohort with data from 2000 children.

Co-first author Jin Li, PhD, of CHOP, was the lead analyst on the study.

In further studies, the scientists showed that the mouse gene corresponding to FNDC1 was expressed in the animal’s middle ear.
“Although the gene’s function in humans has not been well studied, we do know that FNDC1 codes for a protein with a role in inflammation,” said Hakonarson.

Hakonarson added that learning more about the biological interactions between genes and pathogens involved in AOM, researchers hope to develop more specific therapies for the childhood infection, while learning which children are most susceptible to the disease.

“As with many other diseases, early medical intervention may offer the greatest benefits,” he said.

The study has been published online in Nature Communications.

this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes

https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement