The main point in the differential diagnosis of daily for 14 days and the control group assigned
AS is differentiating the disease from upper airway to receive only amoxicillin 80 to 100 mg/kg/ day
viral infection, allergic rhinosinusitis and secondary for 14 days.
bacterial infections of paranasal sinuses. Clinical Inclusion criteria were children 2 to 14 years
course and severity of disease is important in differ- of age, development of AS based on criteria of
entiating the two diseases. Non-complicated rhinos- Americas Children Association include: com-
inusitis usually improve within 7 to 10 days without mon colds persistent more than 10 to 14 days
treatment. Although AS may be improved without with nasal or postnasal discharge with any quali-
treatment, antibiotic therapy can accelerate recovery ty or common cold less than 10 days with puru-
and reduce the risks of orbital and intracranial com- lent nasal discharge, and 3 to 4 days rectal
plications. Differentiate between acute viral rhinosi- recorded fever over 39C.
nusitis and AS is extremely important because an- Patients that had ABS over 4 weeks, allergic
tibiotic treatment is ineffective in acute viral rhinos- rhinitis, nasal obstruction due to deviated nasal
inusitis and should be applied logically. Using an- septum, nasal polyps, lack of parental coopera-
tibiotics in the treatment of AS is controversial. tion, contraindications to use of the studied medi-
Some have no believe to use of antibiotics because cine and wound or lesion in the nasal mucosa
of difficulty in distinguishing between viral rhinosi- were excluded.
nusitis and AS that cure spontaneous11, while others Physical examination was the diagnostic tech-
have known antibiotics as a cornerstone of treat- nique, because the graphy is not recommended
ment of bacterial sinusitis. Also, the antibiotics have for diagnosis of AS. The patients were assigned a
to create cover against Streptococcus pneumoniae, severity score on basis of their presenting clinical
Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis. signs and symptoms. Each variable was scored as
Other factors that should be considered are severity 0 for not affected, 1 for very little problem, 2 for
of the symptoms of disease and previous use of an- mild problem, 3 for moderately bad,4 for bad and
tibiotics12. 5 scored for severe.
Inhaled corticosteroids reduce mucous mem- The Specialists co-workers who assessed the
branes inflammation that causes obstruction of therapeutic effects and treatment complications
sinuses opening theorically. We found only one were blinded to the random allocation.
study has shown the beneficial effects of inhaled In addition to the therapeutic effect of fluticas-
corticosteroids in addition to antibiotics in the one in acute bacterial sinusitis, its effectiveness
treatment of AS among children13 and the results in improving associated symptoms such as
of other studies were different. So that further cough, headache, hoarseness, malaise, facial pain
studies are need in this field. This study aimed to and irritability were studied too.
evaluate the effect of fluticasone nasal spray Demographic characteristics including age,
(FNS) combined with amoxicillin for AS in chil- sex, clinical symptoms such as fever, lethargy,
dren 2 to 14 years of age. headaches, facial pain, toothache, purulent dis-
charge and nasal congestion have been recorded
in a self- structured form prepared by the re-
Patients and Methods searchers. Complete recovery of symptoms was
recorded as a recovery day.
This single-blind clinical trial was performed Clinical data were recorded in several stages;
on 100 children 2 to 14 years of age with acute before intervention, on day 4 by phone or visit of
bacterial sinusitis referred to infectious and Oto- the subject at the clinic and then on days 10 to 14
laryngology Departments of Shahid Mohammadi by follow-up.
Pediatric Hospital in Bandar Abbas Port City. Whenever, no improvement was seen in fever,
The Ethic Committee of Research vice chancel- nasal congestion or cough or exacerbation of the
lor of Hormozgan University of Medical Sci- disease, patients were assessed again and the an-
ences was approved the study and informed con- tibiotics were changed if necessary at any time.
sent from was obtained from the parents of chil- Patient was excluded if no improvement was ob-
dren asked to join the study. served after the fourth day of therapeutic period.
The eligible patients with AS were randomly
allocated into two equal intervention and control Statistical Analysis
groups. The intervention group was assigned to Collected data were analyzed by SPSS 17 sta-
receive amoxicillin with FNS one puffs twice tistical software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA)
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M.B. Rahmati, S. Mohebi, S. Shahmohammadi, M.S. Rezai
using statistical tests t-test and kappa coefficient. Symptom severity score in intervention group
p value of < 0.05 was used to indicate statistical was significantly lower than in the control group
significance. at the end of the therapeutic period (p < 0.001).
Of the 50 children in intervention group, 21
(42%) were cured completely and 29 (58%) were
Results improved relatively. Whereas, 2 (4%) children in
control group had complete recovery and 48 (96%)
In total, 100 patients were enrolled. Forthy- experienced relative improvement and the differ-
eight (48%) of the patients were female and 52 ence was statistically significant (p < 0.001).
(52%) were male. The mean age in intervention As a whole, symptom severity score was 22.98
and control group was 6.38 3.07 years and 7.28 2.95 before treatment that reduced to 13.26
2.54 years respectively. 3.20 after treatment (p < 0.001).
Demographic and clinical characteristics of
patients in the two groups have demonstrated in
Table I. As shown in the table, clinical features Discussion
were almost similar at baseline of the study in the
both studied groups and the differences between Although, in theory, inhaled corticosteroids can
them are negligible. be effective to reduce symptoms of acute sinusitis
Severity score of symptoms before treatment and inflammation of the mucus membranes, few
was 22.46 2.61 in intervention group and 23.50 clinical trials have shown the beneficial effect of
3.19 in control group and there was little differ- topical intranasal steroids in children14,15.
ence between the two groups. The results of this study demonstrated the ben-
At the end of the treatment, symptom severity eficial effect of co-administration of the amoxi-
score in intervention and control group was cillin with fluticasone nasal spray (FNS) one puff
11.68 2.66 and 14.84 2.92 respectively. twice daily for 14 days compared with control
3070
Fluticasone nasal spray as an adjunct to Amoxicillin for acute sinusitis in children
3071
M.B. Rahmati, S. Mohebi, S. Shahmohammadi, M.S. Rezai
13) B ARLAN IB, E RKAN E, B AKIR M, B ERRAK S, B A ARAN 17) AUKEMA AA, MULDER PG, FOKKENS WJ. Treatment of
MM. Intranasal budesonide spray as an adjunct nasal polyposis and chronic rhinosinusitis with flu-
to oral antibiotic therapy for acute sinusitis in ticasone propionate nasal drops reduces need for
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598-601. 1017-1023.
14) MELTZER EO, ORGEL HA, BACKHAUS JW, BUSSE WW, 18) HANSEN FS, DJUPESLAND PG, FOKKENS WJ. Prelimi-
DRUCE HM, METZGER WJ, MITCHELL DQ, SEINER SC, nary efficacy of fluticasone delivered by a novel
SHAPIRO GG, VAN BAYEL GH. Intranasal flunisolide device in recalcitrant chronic rhinosinusitis. Rhi-
spray as an adjunct to oral antibiotic therapy for nology 2010; 48: 292-299.
sinusitis. J Allergy Clin Immunol 1993; 92: 812- 19) DIJKSTRA MD, EBBENS FA, POUBLON RM, FOKKENS WJ.
823. Fluticasone propionate aqueous nasal spray does
15) DOLOR RJ, WITSELL DL, HELLKAMP AS, WILLIAMS JW not influence the recurrence rate of chronic rhi-
JR, CALIFF RM, SIMEL DL. Comparison of cefurox- nosinusitis and nasal polyps 1 year after function-
ime with or without intranasal fluticasone for the al endoscopic sinus surgery. Clin Exper Allergy
treatment of rhinosinusitis: the CAFFS Trial: a 2004; 34: 1395-1400.
randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2001; 286: 20) PARIKH A, SCADDING GK, DARBY Y, BAKER RC. Topical
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16) ZALMANOVICI A, YAPHE J. Steroids for acute sinusi- domized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial us-
ti s. C ochrane D atabas e Sy s t R ev 2007; ing fluticasone propionate aqueous nasal spray.
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