QUB study discovers new way to treat feverish babies without strong antibiotics or painful lower back injections – The Irish News

Queen’s University researchers have developed a new way to treat feverish infants who are at risk of serious bacterial infections, including sepsis.

In the largest study of its kind, the research team recruited almost 2,000 babies from 35 UK hospitals, aiming to overcome the need for stressful procedures and unnecessary hospital stays for babies .

Called Febrile Infants Diagnostic Assessment and Outcome Study (FIDO) and funded by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, it also aims to prevent the overuse of antibiotics in infants.

Currently, any British baby under three months old brought to hospital with a fever will have blood and urine tests, and will also have to have a lumbar puncture, which extracts spinal fluid.

As a precaution, they will also be given strong intravenous antibiotics, and infants will often have to spend the night in hospital, adding to the stress on their families.

Because their immune systems are underdeveloped, young babies are at higher risk of sepsis and other bacterial infections.

However, the new QUB study – whose research was published on the Lancet medical journal’s eClinicalMedicine web page – found that simple routine blood tests could be used to identify one in five babies who can be treated safely without strong antibiotics or strong antibiotics. a lumbar puncture.

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Dr. Thomas Waterfield is the study’s chief investigator and consultant in pediatric emergency medicine and clinical professor of pediatrics at Evaluation

He said: “The FIDO study has clearly shown that we can safely identify a group of feverish infants who do not need painful lumbar puncture tests, strong antibiotics and long hospital stays.

“Additionally, parents have told us that they don’t want us to always treat ‘just in case’ and that if we can safely do less, we should do so. Adopting a more tailored approach to care would bring us closer to Europe and the United States and could reduce the distress of children and their families.

Clare Mills, head of the study laboratory, added: “This personalized approach to care is already common practice in many parts of Europe and the United States, where they have access to a different blood test called procalcitonin.

“Procalcitonin is not widely available in the UK and one of the key findings of the FIDO study is that personalized care can still be provided without the need for costly additional tests, such as procalcitonin. »