From the New York Times I picked this interesting summary of a study showing that antibiotics are not superior to placebo in sinusitis patients. I post this here because it just fits my article about antibiotics and bacteria. It is an alarming result and shows how carelessly we handle antibiotics. Moreover, this study tells us that diagnostics have to precisely differentiate between viral and bacterial infections.
Antibiotics are commonly used to treat sinusitis, an inflammatory illness that can be viral and/or bacterial. A new clinical trial has now found that a placebo works just as well.
Scientists randomized 166 adults, all of whom met the diagnostic criteria for sinusitis. One group of patients received the antibiotic amoxicillin the other a placebo three times a day for 10 days. On the third, seventh and tenth day, the participants recorded their symptoms.
There was no significant difference between the two groups in the amounts of time missed from work or everyday activities, relapse or recurrence rates, adverse effects or satisfaction with the treatment. Nor was there any difference in self-reported improvement in symptoms, except on the seventh day, when 74 percent of those taking amoxicillin reported improvement, compared with 56 percent of those on the placebo.
The authors acknowledge that it is possible that not all patients in the study had bacterial sinusitis, since the diagnosis is made clinically, not by a laboratory test (as mentioned in my article antibiotics are ineffective against a viral infection).
“I hope that the results here will give doctors evidence to use in discussions with patients about avoiding unnecessary antibiotic treatment,” said the lead author, Dr. Jane M. Garbutt of Washington University in St. Louis.
The study appeared last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association. As athletes you should be very careful when choosing antibiotics as a therapy option. At first sight it seems to be the safe way out for both parties, the physician and the patient. The longterm consequences such as multi-resistant bacteria are well known but not much cared of in the specific case.
