Study: Antibiotics Not Helpful to Bronchitis

Study: antibiotics not helpful to bronchitis

WASHINGTON, June 21 (Xinhua) — Taking antibiotics or not makes no difference for bronchitis patients to recover their health, shows a British study to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Paul Little, a professor of primary care research at the University of Southampton in England, made the report after a study over five years on 640 bronchitis patients aged 3 and above. The participants did not have conditions that could complicate their bronchitis, such as asthma or heart and lung disease. Chronic heart and lung disease can cause bronchitis to develop into pneumonia.

In the study, Little found that patients would continue coughing for an average of 11 days after they saw doctors, no matter whether they received antibiotic medication or not. Taking amoxicillin or erythromycin was found to be able to reduce phlegm, shortness of breath and other symptoms in less than one day.

Little said the patients all got better in the same time. Only one patient who did not take antibiotics developed pneumonia and was hospitalized. The patient took antibiotics and recovered fully.

Little drew the conclusion that otherwise healthy patients of bronchitis can skip antibiotics to treat the chest infections.

It is also a fact that many bronchitis cases are caused by viruses, to which antibiotics are not effective.