Regimens: Antibiotics for Children Prone to Urinary Infections

Urinary tract infections are fairly frequent in young children, particularly girls, and when doctors be concerned about recurrence, they frequently prescribe antibiotics preventively.
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But the practice not merely fails to minimize the risk of reinfection, a brand new study says, but it also could make it more most likely that a brand new infection will be resistant to drugs.

The findings do not mean that the infections need to not be treated with antibiotics, stated the senior author of the study, Dr. Ron Keren of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Untreated infections can lead to severe kidney difficulties.

“The question is, right after you've that 1st infection, does putting a patient on a every day low dose of antibiotic avoid recurrent urinary tract infections?” Dr. Keren stated.

Given that the drugs can be given for many years, the researchers mentioned doctors really should discuss the pros and cons with families prior to beginning them. The study appears within the present Journal of the American Medical Association. The lead author is Dr. Patrick H. Conway.

The researchers based their findings on a assessment of the medical records of a lot more than 70,000 young children under age 6 over a period of nearly five years. A lot of of the kids had a urine reflux condition that usually leads to infection.

The study suggests that a better approach might be to carefully monitor youngsters believed to have a reflux difficulty for signs of reinfection, and treat as necessary. The reflux problem typically resolves itself following a number of years.