A big new study has provided parents and doctors with more convincing proof that early antiviral treatment can have a tangible positive impact on children sick enough to be hospitalized with the flu. The authors studied over 7,000 paediatric hospitalisations during 13 American states and 8 influenza seasons. They used data derived from a national surveillance network of laboratory confirmed influenza cases.
The results was simple and optimistic. The children given the antiviral drug osletamivir earlier were 31% less likely to have an ICU admission than those without the anti-viral and to have shorter hospitalizations. The research was undertaken by specialists at the University of Colorado Anschutz and published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Senior author Suchitra Rao, paediatric infectious disease specialist said that the experts’ findings, which came in the aftermath of one of the worst flu seasons in recent history, had found the advantage of receipt of the drug even when treatment was administered more than 2 days after symptoms began. She said the point mattered because doctors and parents sometimes hold back if the perfect 48-hour period has gone by. Previous observational studies frequently found it difficult obtaining the precise date of the initial illness or date of start of medication.
The current review has obtained this information and applied rigorous methodological techniques, strengthening the evidence in the real world. Seven out of ten hospitalised children included in the primary analysis received the antiviral.
Those children received the outcomes which are most important to parents and clinicians: control of the illness requiring critical care and duration of hospital stay, more efficiently. Guidelines already support antiviral use for any child admitted to hospital with confirmed or suspected influenza and also for those that are seriously or progressively ill. Usage though has then decreased these days. When the number of paediatric deaths and severe cases was high, the new information comes to the forefront as a reminder that this drug can Yes make a difference. Flu can be very rapid in children.
What starts as a fever cough tiredness can deteriorate to the point where the child needs oxygen, suffers from pneumonia or other complications enough that they need full intensive respiratory therapy. Anything that can prevent deterioration is valuable. This study doesn’t claim that the antiviral is a silver bullet, nor that vaccination isn’t important, it just shows that if the child’s already in hospital then starting treatment early correlates with a significant reduction in ICU admission the take home message for families has to be that early inquiries to their doctor or hospital consultant about antiviral treatment make sense if their child is admitted with flu.
The message for clinicians is that this study supports current guidelines and offers a route to narrowing the discrepancy between the guidelines and daily practice. The last few tough seasons have shown us how reassuring new evidence is that something so accessible can help to prevent many young children going to intensive care.