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Although most clinical guidelines recommend selection of narrow-spectrum antibiotics such as penicillin and amoxicillin for children with acute respiratory infections, there are inconsistencies in recommendations and practice. To compare the effectiveness of narrow-spectrum and broad-spectrum antibiotics in this setting, researchers conducted two cohort studies involving children aged 6 months to 12 years who received antibiotics for respiratory tract infection.
Of the more than 30,000 children assessed for clinical outcomes in a retrospective study, 14% received broad-spectrum antibiotics. These children had a higher rate of adverse side effects requiring medical attention (4% vs. 3%) and a similar rate of treatment failure (3%) compared wi…