Treatment of Acute Otitis Media in Children

CONTROVERSIES continue regarding the cause of acute otitis media, the necessity to treat certain forms of otitis media, the choice of antibiotics, and the indications for myringotomy. Most of the valid statements have been summarized in our previous studies.1-3After careful reconsideration of all arguments, we decided to continue to use antibacterial therapy as the initial step in treatment of acute otitis media. It appeared after our last study that, of the various antibiotics tested by our group, the combination of penicillin and sulfonamide may be superior to tetracycline, but there was no statistically significant difference in the failure rates among patients treated with penicillin alone and those treated with a combination of penicillin and triple sulfonamide at that time. Administration of pseudoephedrine did not influence the outcome of otitis media in any aspect studied. The present study was performed to evaluate further whether the administration of penicillin together with