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Last Updated: Dec 27th, 2006 - 19:07:47 |
Many American doctors did not use a recommended simple and inexpensive strep throat test before prescribing antibiotics to children complaining of sore throats, according to a study conducted by scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
According to the study, which was published in last week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the US physicians gave antibiotics to 53 percent of the estimated 7.3 million children with sore throats who visited a doctor.
Among those receiving antibiotics, only 15 to 36 percent of cases are strep throat or group A streptococcal pharyngitis that justified use of antibiotics.
"Children with sore throat are frequently given unnecessary antibiotics," Reuters quoted author of the study Dr. Jeffrey Linder. "This over-prescribing of antibiotics could be easily remedied by following known guidelines, which include doing a simple, inexpensive strep test before giving antibiotics."
27 percent of the children received the wrong types of antibiotics that are not recommended for use against strep throat, the study found. Penicillin, amoxicillin, erythromycin and cephalosporin are usually effective against strep throat.
Although overall use of antibiotics for children with sore throats has declined from 66 percent in 1995 to 54 percent in 2003, there was no decline in prescription of non-recommended antibiotics to children.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend the strep throat test before giving antibiotics to children who are suspected to have sore throat.
The strep throat test takes about 15 minutes. For the test, doctors use a cotton swab to collect some material from the back of the throat. Doctors may also do a culture of the throat material. The throat culture may take more than 24 hours.
Overuse and or abuse of antibiotics has been found to attribute to the ever increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics, which eventually lead to the evolution of superbugs that no existing antibiotics can kill.
Additionally, previous epidemiological studies have found use of antibiotics may increase the risk of cancer such as breast cancer.
Drug-resistance is not just a problem of individual patients. A study published in the April 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found that 17 percent of drug-resistant staph infections are acquired in the community rather than from hospitals where all drug-resistant bacteria are usually found.
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