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About one in five children with a cold or other respiratory viral infection develops a middle ear infection that may range from mild to severe, says a new study.
US researchers looked at the number of cases of middle ear infection - acute otitis media - among 294 children, ages six months to three years. Overall, 22% of the children developed a middle ear infection during the first week of respiratory infection.
A diagnosis of acute otitis media was based on the presence of symptoms such as fever and earache, plus inflammation of the eardrum and fluid in the middle ear. Along with the 22% of children who developed the ear infection, another 7% had inflammation of the eardrum without fluid in the middle ear.
Among the children with the middle ear infection, eardrum inflammation was rated mild in 8 percent, moderate in 59% and severe in 35%. Of the 126 children who had the infection in both ears, the infection was more pronounced in one ear in 54% of the cases.
In general, children with the infection were treated without antibiotics whenever possible. Of the 28 children with mild middle ear infection, 24 improved without antibiotics, four got worse and three of them eventually required antibiotics.
The study appears in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
The findings suggest that many children with mild middle ear infections can be managed without antibiotics, said lead author Dr. Stella U. Kalu, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and colleagues, in a journal news release.
(Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.)
