Is Oral Amox-Clav Non-inferior to IV Antibiotics in Pediatric Pyelonephritis?
Background: Present guidelines recommend initial treatment for pediatric pyelonephritis to be a parenteral third-generation cephalosporin followed by oral antibiotics. One prior randomly selected controlled trial compared oral antibiotics only with antibiotics started parenterally, but there was a higher-than-usual incidence of vesicoureteral reflux and female gender in the study. Study design: Non-inferiority, multicenter, random, open label, controlled trial. Setting: Twenty-eight pediatric units in northeast Italy from 2000-2005 Synopsis: 502 children age 1 month to less than 7 years with a clinical diagnosis of first occurrence of acute pyelonephritis according to urinalysis and urine culture (requiring two concordant consecutive tests) with at least two of the following conditions: fever of 38 degrees C or more or elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or c-reactive protein (CRP), and elevated neutrophil count were randomized to receive oral amoxicillin-clavulanate (AC) or