Antibiotics are unnecessary! No, antibiotics are great! No, we give too many antibiotics! It’s getting hard to keep track of which conditions we’re giving and withholding antibiotics for these days.
This article is a teaser for more evidence to come regarding strategies for managing appendicitis without surgical intervention. We’ve seen a few trials already, with essentially unconvincing results in either direction. A large trial regarding an antibiotics-first strategy in an adult population was criticized for using open surgical technique rather than laproscopic – and the one-year failure rate was still rather high. However, a pilot report in a pediatric population probably demonstrates an antibiotic-first strategy is still a reasonable option to present in shared decision-making.
This is a pilot project describing the initial results and feasibility outlook for an antibiotics-first protocol for appendicitis. In this protocol, patients randomized to an antibiotics-first strategy received an intravenous dose of ertapenem in the Emergency Department, were eligible for discharge directly from the Emergency Department, returned for a second dose of ertapenem the next day, and then completed an 8-day course of oral cefdinir and metronidazole.
In their pilot, 42 patients were screened and 30 patients consented for randomization. Of these, 15 were adults and 1 was a pediatric patient. Of the 15 adults, 14 felt well enough for discharge after initial Emergency Department observation. The pediatric protocol called for in-hospital observation regardless of symptoms at presentation.
The results are generally of lesser consequence than the effectiveness of this pilot demonstrating the feasibility of the protocol, and the yield at which patients could be enrolled for a larger trial. There were a couple instances of recurrent appendicitis in the antibiotics-first cohort, one of which was successfully treated with antibiotics a second time. There were a couple surgical complications in the surgery cohort. Costs and overall quality of life scores favored the antibiotics-only group, obviously – but, again, this sample is small enough none of these outcomes have been measured with reliable accuracy or precision.
I think it is reasonable to expect an antibiotics-first strategy to eventually take root as part of acceptable medical practice. However, I suspect this transition will be slow in coming – and more data would be quite helpful in determining any specific risks for antibiotic strategy failures.
“Antibiotics-First Versus Surgery for Appendicitis: A US Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial Allowing Outpatient Antibiotic Management”
Ertapenem ?
Holy maquerels !
I’ll go have a look, hopefully , the authors will explain their antibiotic choice.
Ertapenem if one of the antibiotics under ID stewarts surveillance here.
In case a severe sepsis would occur what antibiotic escalation will there be left ? (Most of the escalation coud be the blade, but yet..)
Ertapenem is their choice because of its q24 hour dosing and gram-negative coverage. As a research protocol pilot, I think they are concerned with maximum effectiveness and ease of enrollment. If their follow-up study is successful, I’d expect variations on clinically equivalent antibiotics to be acceptable.