Antibiotic Treatment Not Necessary for Most Children With Conjunctivitis
Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 03:01 CDT
Rose P et al. Chloramphenicol treatment for acute infective conjunctivitis in children in primary care: a randomised double- blind placebo-controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 366: 37-43 Lancet www.thelancet.com Published online June 22, 2005
Most children with infective conjunctivitis (pinkeye) do not need treatment with an antibiotic, a study has concluded.
One in eight school children have an episode of conjunctivitis every year. This amounts to more than one million episodes in the UK and more than five million in the US. Diagnosis of the condition is usually straightforward but doctors find difficulty in differentiating a viral cause from a bacterial cause. Standard practice is to prescribe antibiotic eye drops, although evidence to support this decision is scarce. Antibiotic resistance is also a growing global problem, according to the researchers from University of Oxford, UK, who carried out a randomised trial to investigate the effectiveness of an antibiotic treatment when compared with a placebo.
Over 300 children were recruited onto the study from 12 medical practices in Oxfordshire, from 2001 to 2004. Half were assigned to chloramphenicol eye drops - the most commonly used antibiotic for conjunctivitis in the UK - and half to placebo eye drops.
The investigators found no significant difference in the cure rate after seven days; 86% of the children were clinically cured in the antibiotic group compared with 83% in the placebo group. Even in children who had a bacterial infection, the clinical cure rate did not differ significantly between the antibiotic (85%) and the placebo groups (80%).
'We have shown that symptoms resolve without antibiotics in most children with acute infective conjunctivitis,' say the authors. The health economic argument against antibiotic prescription for acute conjunctivitis is compelling. The cost of one million general practice consultations and antibiotic prescriptions every year is substantial. Parents should be encouraged to treat children themselves without medical consultation, unless their child develops unusual symptoms or the symptoms persist for more than a week.
The authors concede however that parental concern and the current exclusion policy of many schools and nurseries for children with conjunctivitis could make implementation of a change in prescription policy difficult. An education programme and change in school policy to reflect national public health advice might be needed before family doctors can realistically achieve a reduction in antibiotic prescriptions, they say
* The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency recently announced that chloramphenicol eye drops should be available over-thecounter. It will be the first antibiotic to be sold by pharmacists without a prescription in the UK.
Copyright TG Scott & Son Ltd. Aug 2005
Source: Community Practitioner
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