Despite guidelines that recommend their use when symptoms linger, antibiotics have little or no effect against most acute sinus infections in children, a study found. The study comes amid growing concern that the overuse of antibiotics is creating drug-resistant germs.
Acute sinusitis is an inflammation of membranes lining the sinuses.
It affects perhaps 20 million U.S. adults and children a year and is among the most common childhood ailments for which antibiotics are routinely prescribed. Serious complications such as meningitis can occur but are rare. Sinusitis can be caused by viruses or, far less commonly, bacteria - which are the only germs antibiotics work against. The ailment is difficult to diagnose in children because their symptoms often are simply those of a lingering cold and cough without the facial pain and fever typically seen in adults. The study, which involved 161 children who had up to four weeks of symptoms and were diagnosed with acute sinusitis, appears in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics .