NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young children treated for urinary tract infections are not likely to benefit from continued antibiotic treatment after the infection clears, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week.
The use of prophylactic antibiotics, which involves daily administration of antibiotics to children after an initial urinary tract infection, or UTI, does not prevent recurrence, and it increases the risk of infection caused by antibiotic-resistant bugs, researchers found.
Dr. Patrick H. Conway, from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues analyzed data on 611 children up to 6 years old diagnosed with a first UTI.
One hundred twenty eight children (20.9 percent) were prescribed an antibiotic after the infection cleared. Eighty-three of the children (13.6 percent) experienced a recurrent infection and 51 of these infections (61.4 percent) were caused by an antibiotic-resistant pathogen, the investigators report.
They also report that exposure to prophylactic antibiotics significantly increased the likelihood of resistant infections (7.5 times increased risk).
Conway and his team think it is prudent for doctors to discuss the "risks and unclear benefits of prophylaxis" with parents before making treatment decisions after a first UTI.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, July 11, 2007.
