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Children's Oral Penicillin Dose Guidelines Need Updating

Children’s dosage recommendations for oral penicillin need to be updated to account for increases in children’s average weights, according to researcher Umar Ahmed and a team of UK specialists.

In a feature published online in the BMJ (15 December 2011), Mr Ahmed — a pharmacist and paediatric pharmacy researcher at the School of Pharmacy, University of London — and colleagues point out that the same penicillin dosage recommendations have been used for children for the past 50 years, whereas the adult dosage has gone up over the years.

Most paediatric penicillin doses are based on age bands, with an average weight assumed for each age group. However, children have got heavier since these average weights were calculated (see Panel) and failing to take this change into account could result in suboptimal dosing, the authors say. This could increase antimicrobial resistance and make further treatment necessary, increasing the risk of severe complications.

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Extract taken from PJ Online