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PCORI-Funded Study to Compare Broad, Narrow-Spectrum Antibiotics

Published on May 12, 2014 in Cornerstone Blog · Last updated 1 week ago
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The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Jeffrey S. Gerber, MD, PhD, recently received an approximately $1.8 million contract from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to compare the effectiveness of broad and narrow-spectrum antibiotics in treating acute respiratory infections. An infectious diseases specialist and a Clinical Futures faculty member, Dr. Gerber investigates the epidemiology and outcomes of antibiotic use in children.

Last year PCORI awarded the Clinical Futures' Ron Keren, MD, MPH, more than $2 million to study the effectiveness of oral and intravenous antibiotics. Since PCORI began funding research projects in 2012, the organization has awarded a staggering $464 million to support 279 projects.

Dr. Gerber’s award was one of 71 announced during the fourth quarter of 2013. Dr. Gerber’s three-year investigation will be focused on the use of antibiotics to treat acute respiratory tract infections (ARTI), such as ear and sinus infections. Despite the fact that guidelines frequently recommend using narrow-spectrum antibiotics to treat ARTI, many doctors often prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics.

According to a 2011 Pediatrics study, between 2006 and 2008 there were approximately 65.6 million doctor’s visits for respiratory conditions. During those visits, there were 31.7 million antibiotic prescriptions made, including 5.8 million prescriptions to treat ARTI for which antibiotics are not indicated. Overall, broad-spectrum antibiotics were prescribed more than half the time.

While prescribing antibiotics can be challenging, “guidelines for antibiotic prescribing for the most common conditions that affect kids are relatively straightforward,” Dr. Gerber said, pointing out that roughly 80 percent of outpatient pediatric antibiotic prescriptions are intended to treat four conditions: ear infections, strep throat, sinus infections, and pneumonia.

Because pediatric antibiotic prescription rates have been documented, with this project Dr. Gerber and his team will seek to learn more about the safety and efficacy of those drugs. “Using parent- and patient-centered outcomes, this study is designed to identity which antibiotic choices best optimize clinical outcomes while minimizing side effects,” he said.

Using Qualitative Research to Inform Quantitative Research

This PCORI-funded project will be conducted in two parts: first the researchers will conduct in-person interviews with parents and children who visit the pediatrician’s office with ARTI symptoms. The goal of study’s first half is to allow parents and children to express, in their own words, the outcomes related to antibiotics that are most important to them. The investigators will then use the data gleaned from these interviews to generate outcomes that will be assessed the study’s second arm.

To oversee the interviews, Dr. Gerber has been working with a medical sociologist, Julia Szymczak, PhD. A postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Szymczak designed the interviews to “help generate outcomes that can then be tested quantitatively,” she said. The strength of qualitative research “lies in its open-endedness and ability to generate insights that you hadn’t previously considered.” This first arm of the study is already underway, and the researchers are looking to recruit 100 parents and children across the CHOP network.

In the second half of the project, the researchers will conduct phone interviews with a much larger patient population, approximately 3000 families. They will follow the patients prospectively, calling 10 and 30 days following an antibiotic prescription.

In addition to assessing traditional medical outcomes, the investigators are seeking to gauge “outcomes that aren’t typically on a medical chart” — like diarrhea, sleeplessness, and absence from school, which may not require a visit to the hospital but can be disruptive for patients and families, Dr. Gerber said.

The study is “a very comprehensive effort to be patient-centered,” Dr. Szymczak said, adding that it is “exciting because it makes our science more relevant to people in the real world.”

Possible Implications

The possible implications of the project are wide-ranging, as antibiotic prescribing and ARTI are so widespread. There are a number of adverse events associated with antibiotic use. Side effects associated with penicillin, for instance, include upset stomach and diarrhea, and in serious cases rash, fever, and facial swelling. Additionally, there is a concern that overuse of antibiotics can lead to drug-resistant infections.

Dr. Gerber’s hope is that his project helps to empower families to ask the correct questions about their children’s care, and that it helps clinicians design better interventions.

“Given that these four conditions account for 80 percent of antibiotic prescribing, and given that outpatient antibiotic prescribing accounts for 80 percent of all antibiotic prescribing, even a small difference in efficacy can have huge implications,” Dr. Gerber said.

To read more about Dr. Gerber’s project, see the April issue of CHOP Research’s in-depth monthly research publication Bench to Bedside, or Clinical Futures website.