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Single dose amoxicillin treatment of acute otitis media
Author(s) -
Puczynski Mark S.,
Stankiewicz James A.,
O'Keefe J. aul
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
the laryngoscope
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.181
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1531-4995
pISSN - 0023-852X
DOI - 10.1288/00005537-198701000-00006
Subject(s) - amoxicillin , medicine , placebo , acute otitis media , otitis , anesthesia , surgery , antibiotics , alternative medicine , pathology , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
A double blind study comparing a single dose of amoxicillin versus a 10‐day course of amoxicillin in the treatment of acute otitis media (AOM) was undertaken. All children diagnosed with AOM in a pediatric clinic were requested to participate. After tympanocentesis was performed, patients were randomly assigned to receive either amoxicillin (100 mg/kg) followed by placebo every 8 hours for 10 days or placebo followed by amoxicillin (40 mg/kg/D) for 10 days. Patients returned to clinic on days 3 and 10 post‐treatment. Seventeen patients were enrolled: 7 received single dose therapy and 10 received 10 days of therapy. There were no failures in the control group and 3 failures in the single dose group (day 5, day 6, and 11) (p=0.05). Middle ear isolates included: S. pneumoniae 7, H. influenzaa 4, B. catarrhalis 1 , and no pathogen in 5. Due to the significant number of failures in the treatment group, the study was prematurely terminated. Our study shows that single‐dose amoxicillin is not adequate treatment for AOM.