Individuals treated with antibiotics for acne for more than six weeks were more than twice as likely to develop an upper respiratory tract infection within one year as individuals with acne who were not treated with antibiotics, according to latest study reports.
Overuse of antibiotics has been held to be responsible for drug resistance and an associated increase in increase in infectious illness. The present study has exposed the definite relationship regarding antibiotic use and susceptibility to infections. A patient with acne, for which long-term antibiotic use is standard and appropriate therapy, was considered an ideal group for the exploration.The patients were chosen from a common database, and statistical methods were used to estimate how often individuals were likely to see a physician. The researchers compared the incidence of a common infectious illness, upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), in individuals with acne who were treated with antibiotics to those whose acne was not treated with antibiotics.
Of 118,496 individuals with acne, 84,977 (71.7 percent) received either topical or oral antibiotic for more than six weeks for treatment of their acne and 33,519 (28.3 percent) did not.
It has been shown that the odds of a URTI developing among individuals who use an antibiotic to treat acne is about two times greater compared with those who do not use an antibiotic.
The true clinical importance of the findings, in which patients and practitioners need to balance the risk of these infections with the benefits that patients with acne receive from this therapy, will require further investigation.
