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Study: Viruses Can Cause Ear Infections

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 November 2006, 15:00 CST

A Finnish-led study has discovered many ear infections can involve both bacteria and viruses, complicating treatment options.

The researchers, led by Dr. Aino Ruohola of the Turku University Hospital in Finland, used a variety of laboratory techniques to identify the pathogen that caused ear infections, known clinically as acute otitis media in 79 young children. They found bacteria in 92 percent of the cases, viruses in 70 percent and both bacteria and viruses in 66 percent.

"The major finding of the study is that acute otitis media is a co-infection of bacteria and viruses in the great majority of children. This is actually logical since acute otitis media is virtually always connected to viral respiratory infection.

Based on this and previous research, it is possible that viruses cause a considerable proportion of clinical treatment failures, Ruohola said. Thus, in these cases, a new antibiotic is not necessarily the best choice although bacteria resistant to common antibiotics are wide-spread.

The research will appear in the Dec. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and is available online.

Source: United Press International

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