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This new antibiotic could revolutionize medical care, reducing drug instance and side effects.
The researchers are a step closer to easier infections cure by discovering a new single application antibiotic gel that could deliver a treatment for ear infections, making the treatment for this illness easier and safe.
Ear Infections
Otitis media, also known as middle-ear infection brings 12 to 16 million patients in the hospital every year. Researchers estimate that approximately 95 percent of US children are affected by the illness. It is the first reason for pediatric antibiotic descriptions, but as doctors and parents know, getting antibiotics into children every day for 5 to 10 days is really hard and dangerous, some of the drugs affecting children’s health.
A lot of parents experience a hard time when trying to administrate their children antibiotics, as said by Daniel Kohane, MD, Ph.D., the study’s senior investigator and director of the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery at Boston Children’s.
Another issue is that, after a few days, if the children seem to get better, parents often stop treatment too soon. Frequent recurrence of otitis media (almost 40 percent of children have three or more episodes) and incomplete treatment encourage the development of infections and drug resistance.
Using of Treatment
The new treatment is easy to use: Squirted into the ear canal, the gel quickly stays in place and hardens, gradually dispensing antibiotics across the eardrum into the middle ear.
“Our technology gets things across the eardrum that don’t usually get across, in sufficient quantity to be therapeutic,” says Kohane.
When tested in chinchillas, the gel completely cured ear infections “Haemophilus influenzae” in 10 of 10 animals. Also, no antibiotic was detected, and there was no observable toxicity in the animals’ blood.
Funding
The funding was provided by the Center for Inovative Technology and Integration Medicine with the use of subcontract #W81XWH-09-2-0001. A lot of scientists and doctors contributed to the study, making the results of the research believable and useful for medicine and people.
What’s your opinion regarding the subject? Do you think the new cure will be more efficient for treating ear infections? Let us know!
Image Source : Flickr
