Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Aug 16, 2021; 9(23): 6717-6724
Published online Aug 16, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i23.6717
Efficacy of different antibiotics in treatment of children with respiratory mycoplasma infection
Mei-Ying Zhang, Yan Zhao, Jin-Feng Liu, Guo-Ping Liu, Rui-Yun Zhang, Li-Min Wang
Mei-Ying Zhang, Yan Zhao, Rui-Yun Zhang, Li-Min Wang, Department of Pediatrics, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao 266011, Shandong Province, China
Jin-Feng Liu, Department of ICU, Jinan City People’s Hospital, Jinan 271199, Shandong Province, China
Guo-Ping Liu, Department of Interventional Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao 266003, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang MY and Zhao Y designed the study; Liu JF drafted the work; Liu GP and Zhang RY collected the data; Zhang MY analyzed and interpreted the data; Zhang MY, Zhao Y, and Wang LM wrote the article.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Qingdao Municipal Hospital Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li-Min Wang, PhD, Staff Physician, Department of Pediatrics, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, No. 1 Jiaozhou Road, Shibei District, Qingdao 266011, Shandong Province, China. wanglimin1020@126.com
Received: March 2, 2021
Peer-review started: March 2, 2021
First decision: April 4, 2021
Revised: April 6, 2021
Accepted: May 15, 2021
Article in press: May 15, 2021
Published online: August 16, 2021
Processing time: 156 Days and 9.9 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Respiratory infections in children are common pediatric diseases caused by pathogens that invade the respiratory system. Children are considerably susceptible to Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. There has been widespread clinical attention on treatment strategies for this disease.

AIM

To analyze the clinical efficacy of different antibiotics in treating pediatric respiratory mycoplasma infections.

METHODS

We included 106 children with a confirmed diagnosis of respiratory mycoplasma infection who were admitted to our hospital from April 2017 to July 2019 and grouped them using a random number table. Among them, 53 children each received clarithromycin or erythromycin. The clinical efficacy of both drugs was evaluated and compared. We performed the multiplex polymerase chain reaction (MP-PCR) test and determined the MP-PCR negative rate in children after the end of the treatment course. We compared the incidence of toxic and side effects, including nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal pain; further, we recorded the length of hospitalization, antipyretic time, and drug costs. Additionally, we evaluated and compared the compliance of the children during treatment.

RESULTS

The erythromycin group showed a significantly higher total effective rate of clinical treatment than the clarithromycin group. MP-PCR test results showed that the clarithromycin group had a significantly higher MP-PCR negative rate than the erythromycin group. Moreover, children in the clarithromycin group had shorter fever time, shorter hospital stays, and lower drug costs than those in the erythromycin group. The clarithromycin group had a significantly higher overall drug adherence rate than the erythromycin group. The incidence of toxic and side effects was significantly lower in the clarithromycin group than in the erythromycin group (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that clarithromycin has various advantages over erythromycin, including higher application safety, stronger mycoplasma clearance, and higher medication compliance in children; therefore, it can be actively promoted.

Keywords: Clarithromycin; Erythromycin; Mycoplasma respiratory infection; Children; Clinical efficacy; Drug compliance; Toxic side effects

Core tip: This study aimed to explore the efficacy of different antibiotics for treating respiratory mycoplasma infection in children. Compared with erythromycin, clarithromycin showed numerous advantages, including high safety, a strong mycoplasma clearance rate, and high drug compliance.