Medicus, Vol. 27 No. 2 Sumamed, 2018.
Review article
Azithromycin in Children
Goran Tešović
Abstract
Despite the increasing macrolide resistance among the most common respiratory pathogens, especially in countries with a long-term use of macrolides, azithromycin plays an important role in the treatment of frequent infections in children. Respiratory infections, primarily community-acquired pneumonia, among children above the age of 5 in particular, as well as therapeutic combination for the treatment of pneumonia in younger children with suspected mixed infection or severe/complicated course of clinical disease, remain an important indication area for azithromycin. Moreover, evidence of the role of atypical bacteria (Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydia pneumoniae) in the aetiology of acute tonsillopharyngitis and asthma, as well as the continuous presence of whooping cough in population, point out clear indications for the use of macrolides/azalides in paediatric medicine. The treatment of streptococcal tonsillopharyngitis in Croatia, where macrolide resistance in Streptococcus pyogenes is about 7%, also remains an indication for the administration of macrolides/azalides, particularly in the case of beta-lactame antibiotic allergy and in the cases where treatment can be initiated following the receipt of bacteriological findings for throat swab. Azithromycin should undoubtedly be used in the treatment of non-respiratory infections such as cat-scratch disease (infections caused by Bartonella henselae), antimicrobial therapy of bacterial diarrhoea and traveller's diarrhoea, solitary erythema migrans (Lyme borreliosis), some neonatal infections (chlamydial conjunctivitis and pneumonia), as well as some other infections (skin and soft tissue infections such as impetigo, erysipelas, cellulitis, folliculitis and paronychia, and cryptosporidiosis, meningococcal prophylaxis, cystic fibrosis exacerbations).
Keywords
macrolides; azithromycin; pneumonia; atypical bacteria; tonsillopharyngitis; whooping cough; gastroenteritis; cat-scratch disease; Lyme borreliosis
Hrčak ID:
214606
URI
Publication date:
31.10.2018.
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