CAP-IT childhood pneumonia trial opens
02 Mar 2017
The CAP-IT trial is now open, and has recruited its first six patients. CAP-IT is looking at the best way to give antibiotics to young children with pneumonia.
The CAP-IT study is looking at the most commonly used pneumonia treatment (amoxicillin). It is known to be a very safe drug but surprisingly little is known about how best to use it. The study is aiming to find out what dose of amoxicillin treatment is best for young children, and how long it should be used for.
The study will investigate:
- whether three days of treatment is as good as seven days of treatment
- whether a low dose of amoxicillin is as good as a high dose
- the effect of the different treatment lengths / doses on bacteria.
Pneumonia is one of most common infections on the lungs in young children worldwide. There are no good tests to clearly identify whether pneumonia is caused by bacteria in children. As a result, antibiotics are very commonly prescribed to children for possible pneumonia. We know that treatment with antibiotics can lead to changes in the bacteria carried by the person taking them, making the bacteria become more resistant to the effect of the antibiotics. These resistant bacteria can subsequently cause an infection in the treated children or spread to other persons in close contact. Infections caused by resistant bacteria are more difficult to treat.
The study will include children aged one to five years old, who come to A&E or a Paediatric Assessment Unit in the UK and are diagnosed with Community-Acquired Pneumonia and treated with amoxicillin.
The CAP-IT trial is funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme and the Medical Research Council.