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A recent report of a cluster of babies with infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS) raised the possibility that erythromycin is a risk factor for this condition, which rarely occurs in children older than 3 months (JW Jan 15 2000, p. 19, accession number 000107006, MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 1999; 48:1117, and Lancet 1999; 354:2101). In this large retrospective study, researchers confirmed the association between erythromycin treatment and IHPS.
During a 6-year period, 14,876 eligible babies were born at 1 urban hospital in Indiana, and 43 of these infants developed IHPS. Six of 226 babies (2.6 percent) who were given oral erythromycin within 2 weeks of birth developed IHPS; 37 of 14,650 babies (0.2 percent) who did not receive systemi…