New Antibiotic may Provide Single Dose Cure for Ear Infections

Middle-ear infection, or otitis media, usually caused by bacteria or viruses and it requires high doses of oral antibiotics to cure. This high dose of oral antibiotics may cause side effects like diarrhea; rashes and oral thrush are common. Symptoms include pain and fever and in some cases. It may also cause drainage of fluid from the ear or hearing loss. Although most infections go away on their own, some require antibiotics. US researchers has developed a single dose of a bioengineered gel could deliver a full course of antibiotic therapy for a common childhood ear infection much easier and potentially safer.

Researchers led by Boston Children Hospital in the US said, ear infection is the number one reason for pediatric antibiotic prescriptions, but getting oral antibiotics into young children several times a day for seven to 10 days is a difficult task.

Squirted into the ear canal, the gel quickly hardens and stays in place and gradually dispensing antibiotics across the eardrum into the middle ear. Daniel Kohane from Boston Children’s Hospital said “Our technology gets things across the eardrum that don’t usually get across in sufficient quantity to be therapeutic,”

Previously the tympanic membrane was an impenetrable barrier, but the bioengineered gel gets drugs past it with the help of chemical permeation enhancers (CPEs). The CPEs insert themselves into the membrane and opening up molecular pores that allow the antibiotics to seep through to the eardrum’s outermost layer.

Stephen Pelton, paediatrician at Boston Medical Center said, “Transtympanic delivery of antibiotics to the middle ear has the capacity to enable children to benefit from the rapid antibacterial activity of antimicrobial agents without systemic exposure and could reduce emergence of resistant microbes”. READ ALSO: Now, Your smartphone can help Diagnose Ear Infection.

The Indian Express

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