Active clinical trials for "Otitis Media"

The objective of this study is to evaluate the imaging capabilities and image analysis performance of the OtoSight Middle Ear Scope in pediatric patients undergoing tympanostomy tube placement for otitis media. In this observational study, results of OtoSight imaging will not affect patient standard of care.

Acute otitis media (AOM), defined as acute inflammation in the middle ear, is a leading cause of health encounters and antimicrobial prescriptions in children worldwide. Diagnosis of AOM is often dependent on a brief view of the tympanic membrane in an uncooperative child's ear canal. As a consequence, AOM may be inappropriately diagnosed when visualization of the tympanic membrane (ear drum) is not optimal. Improved methods for visualizing the tympanic membrane including capturing still images and recording video of the ear exam would be beneficial in the diagnosis and management of otic complaints, including acute and chronic otitis media. Use of a smartphone otoscope has the potential to optimize clinician ability to manage otic complaints, visualize the tympanic membrane, and support antimicrobial stewardship. This study will be conducted as a randomized control study in two affiliated children's hospital emergency departments. Twenty volunteer clinicians will be randomly assigned to use either a smartphone otoscope or a conventional otoscope for all otic examinations for a 6-month period.

Rationale In Belgium, a unique situation exists for two reasons: on the one hand, the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) program, which started in 2007, has quickly reached high coverage in infants: 3-dose coverage rose from 89 % in 2008 to 96.5 % in 2012 in Flanders and from 80.7 % in 2009 to 89.2 % in 2012 in Wallonia; and on the other hand, serotype coverage has moved from PCV7 (since 2007) to PCV13 (since 2011) and very recently to PCV10 (since July 2015 in Flanders and expected in May 2016 in the French Community). Invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) surveillance has demonstrated a major impact on PCV13 serotypes in infants < 2 years of age. The impact of the current change in PCV-program is hard to predict, but could eventually result in a re-emergence of serotypes not covered by PCV10 (i.e. 3, 6A and 19A). With this unique situation the foundation was laid for a carriage study during which the nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumonia (Sp) and other common colonizers of the nasopharynx will be studied in infants with acute otitis media (AOM) and in healthy infants attending day-care centers (DCC), two populations with high reported pneumococcal carriage. Young children are an important reservoir and major source of transmission of bacteria to the whole community and thus the preferred population to study nasopharyngeal (NP) carriage. Aim of the study The main aim of this study is to evaluate if changes in the conjugate anti-pneumococcal vaccination program in Belgium have an impact on the nasopharyngeal carriage of Pneumococcus in infants aged 6-30 months suffering from AOM or attending day-care, in order to guide future pneumococcal vaccine program decisions and vaccine development, and to feed AOM treatment guidelines in a PCV-program environment. The study will monitor overall pneumococcal carriage, the serotypes involved and the sensitivity of the isolated strains to antibiotics. In addition, the rhinopharyngeal carriage of other common nasopharyngeal colonizers associated with disease, in particular Haemophilus influenzae, will be studied in order to evaluate if changes in pneumococcal carriage impact on the carriage of those pathogens. In infants with AOM, the study will also monitor the clinical course of the AOM and a second nasopharyngeal sample will be taken in case of antibiotic treatment failure or AOM recurrence to identify any association with the carried pathogen.

Studies which describe the bacterial aetiology and antimicrobial susceptibility in AOM children in Latin America are scarce. Interestingly, when the MEF microbiology was analyzed among 1,108 children aged 2-92 months with OM between years 2002 and 2007, non-typable H. influenzae was the most common pathogen isolated from the MEF of children with a otitis media failing to appropriate antimicrobial therapy. PCV-7 (3 + 1 regimen) was introduced into the Costa Rican national immunization program in January 2009 and in August/September of 2011, it was changed for PCV 13 (-2+1 regimen). Following PCV-7 universal introduction in Costa Rica, between March of 2010 and January of 2011, MEF samples from Costa Rican children with OM, having received 0-4 PCV 7 vaccine doses, were obtained via tympanocentesis (88%) or from spontaneous otorrhoea (12%). It was interesting to observed that among the initial 134 OM episodes, the most common bacterial pathogen identified was H. influenzae (55%) followed by S. pneumoniae (31%) and that among the S. pneumoniae episodes, 55% were already non-PCV-7 serotypes and that 25% of these isolates were multi-drug resistant. The primary objectives of the study are to analyze the effect of early universal utilization of PCV-13 in Costa Rican children with the number of H. influenzae and PCV-13- S. pneumoniae positive MEF cultures by comparing the data collected prospectively and by the same group of investigators that have collected the original data since 1992, from children for the post-PCV-13 introduction with anonymised information collected retrospectively pre-PCV-7 data (1999-2004) during a transition period in which PCV-7 was used in only the private settings (2005-2008) and during universal use of PCV-7 (2009-September 2011).

The emergency department (ED) constitutes a high-risk environment for errors and poor quality of care. Pediatric patients are at increased risk of medical errors. We postulate that implementation of a patient-centered health information technology - ParentLink - can address system-level deficiencies and the unique "just-in-time" information needs of ED physicians and the parents of ill children. The proposed work delivers an innovative product - an electronic interface linked to a pediatric knowledge base that integrates parent-derived data with best practices for safe and effective emergency care across common pediatric disease conditions: otitis media, urinary tract infections, asthma, and head trauma. The study has two aims, the first of which addresses critical gaps in data capture: to evaluate the completeness and accuracy of information on symptoms, disease condition, medications and allergies generated by parents using ParentLink versus information documented by ED physicians and nurses, using structured telephone interviews as a gold standard. The second aim measures the ParentLink's impact on ED patient safety and quality, specifically: a) the error rate for ordering and prescribing of medications during ED care, and b) the percent of ED visits that adhere to national evidence-based guidelines. Parentlink will be rigorously evaluated in a clinical trial at two diverse ED sites and will use a sequential, non-randomized observational design with two intervention and two control periods to measure the effects of ParentLink on data capture and safety and quality of patient care.

The study will recruit healthy volunteers to undergo the Iontophoresis procedure using the Acclarent Iontophoresis System with Earset (IPSES).

An e-learning module to teach how to evaluate ears in children was recently designed. The aim of this study is to measure the impact of this e-learning module on the trainees' ability to appropriately diagnose ear infection in clinical setting.

This post-marketing surveillance study of CLAVAMOX® was designed to collect and assess the information on proper use, such as safety and efficacy, under actual use conditions, targeting pediatric Japanese patients with diseases (superficial skin infection, deep skin infection, lymphangitis, lymphadenitis, chronic pyoderma, pharyngitis, laryngitis, tonsillitis, acute bronchitis, cystitis, pyelonephritis) other than otitis media. ("CLAVAMOX" is a trademark of the GlaxoSmithKline group of companies.)

The study team aims to elucidate the potential role of ototopical antibiotic concentration on outcomes in patients diagnosed with chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM). Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) is characterized by chronic inflammation of the middle ear with persistent discharge from a non-intact tympanic membrane. CSOM is notably associated with a significant burden of disease worldwide. Topical fluoroquinolones are first line therapy for CSOM and are advantageous as compared to oral or intravenous therapy in that these antibiotics avoid systemic side effects and have the potential to locally deliver high antibiotic concentrations, which were thought to be sufficient to overcome all bactericidal resistance to fluoroquinolones. The investigators will measure antibiotic concentration in aspirates via liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) from the middle ear of selected subjects with CSOM who are prescribed and instructed to self-administer ototopical ciprofloxacin. Enrolled subjects will be asked to return 3 to 10 days after initial visit to aspirate the middle ear and receive a follow-up evaluation. Furthermore, the subjects will be asked to keep logs of their medication use and to administer the ototopical medication one hour prior to their appointments. The measured ciprofloxacin concentrations will be correlated with clinical outcomes, primarily the time to symptom resolution. The guiding hypothesis is that patient self-administration of ciprofloxacin drops vary in antibiotic delivery with diluted concentrations significantly below the in vitro concentration of the prescribed solution and that these concentrations are below the bactericidal concentration of ciprofloxacin-resistant bacteria.

The purpose of this study is to identify and use patient centered outcomes to compare narrow-spectrum and broad-spectrum antibiotics for the treatment of common acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs) in children.