A guest post by Justin Mazzillo, a community doc in New Hampshire.
Perhaps you’ve seen a case or two this year – a child brought to the emergency department for a cold lasting more than a day. Little Johnny’s parents dragged him in to see you at three in the morning, in hopes of obtaining the instant cure of antibiotics.
These authors out of Washington and the United Kingdom conducted a systematic review to determine the duration of symptoms of earache, sore throat, cough and common cold in children less than 18 years of age. They included only trial arms that used no treatment, symptomatic treatment or placebo. Their findings include:
· Symptoms of earache resolved by day three in 50% of patients and day seven to eight in 90%.
· Sore throat resolved in two to seven days.
· General cough resolved by day 10 in 50% and day 25 in 90%. Symptoms of croup were gone in 80% by day two.
· Bronchiolitis symptoms were gone in 50% by day 13 and estimated to be gone in 90% of patients by day 21.
· Lastly, it took 10 days for 50% of symptoms of the common cold to resolve and 15 days for 90% to be symptom free.
The authors found this data to differ significantly from estimates by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the US Centers for Disease Control. This information may go a long way in preventing parents from convincing doctors to put little Johnny on a myriad of antibiotics while his virus runs its course.
“Duration of symptoms of respiratory tract infections in children: systematic review”
http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7027