Drugs in the News - Delay in the Use of Antibiotics Evaluated
The results of a study among children with ear infections published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association are encouraging. Over 200 children from ages 6 months to 12 years who came to a hospital emergency room complaining of an ear infection were evaluated. After the children were seen, parents of the children who got an antibiotic prescription for the child’s ear infection were told to wait 2 days (48 hours) before they had the prescription filled. Surprisingly, over 65% who were told to delay actually did so. All children received pain reliever medicine. Here is the surprising result: the group of children whose parents did not have the antibiotic prescription filled recovered from the ear infection at the same rate as those who had the prescription filled and were given the antibiotic. Pediatricians believe that many ear infections clear up on their own. Also, physicians are concerned that giving antibiotics to all patients, such as every time a child has an upper respiratory tract infection, is probably contributing to the development of resistant bacteria that are hard to treat with standard antibiotics.