Advice Changes on Treating Ear Infections

Antibiotics help children with ear infections recover more quickly. Over the last decade or so there has been a movement to delay antibiotic treatment of otitis media, the medical name for middle ear infections. A watch and wait philosophy has been promoted to reduce antibiotic overuse. But two current studies in The New England Journal of Medicine suggest that antibiotic treatment is better than placebo for a majority of youngsters with ear infections. One study was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, while the other was done in Turku, Finland. Both studies randomly assigned children to receive Augmentin or placebo and both found that the antibiotic resulted in significantly fewer treatment failures. The antibiotic treatment was associated with many more cases of diarrhea and diaper rash, however. An accompanying editorial answers the question: Is middle ear infection treatable? The editorialist’s answer is a definitive yes.

[New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 13, 2010]