Clinical Response to Amoxicillin among Children with Acute Suppurative Otitis Media

Abstract

Background: Acute Suppurative Otitis Media(ASOM) is a very common disease of childhood caused by various bacteria and viruses. Amoxicillin is used as first line antibiotics in the community setting as well as hospital setting.
Methods: This is a hospital based prospective observational cross-sectional study. All cases of ASOM of patients under 14 years presenting to the Patan Hospital with duration of less than 6weeks were included in the study. Ear discharge was collected using sterile cotton swab using aseptic precautions and sent to the Department of Microbiology for further processing. The children were treated with amoxicillin (80mg/kg/day) with maximum dose not exceeding 3g/day and follow up was done after 1 week of antibiotic therapy for clinical responsiveness.
Results: Out of 32 cases, 13 cases showed no growth of organism in the culture sensitivity reports. Among remaining 19 cases, 9 were sensitive and 10 were resistant to amoxicillin. Coagulase negative Staphylococcus (7) was the most common organism grown in the laboratory followed by Staphylococcus aureus (4) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (4). Chloramphenicol, linezolid, clindamycin and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole were the most common antibiotics sensitive to the organisms grown besides amoxicillin. Out of total 32 patients, 31 were responsive to high dose amoxicillin at the end of 1 week.
Conclusions: Oral amoxicillin in high doses is effective in the treatment of ASOM in children.
Keywords: ASOM; clinical response; high dose amoxicillin.