Study: Antibiotics have little impact on child ear infections

Giving children antibiotics for ear infections does little to speed their recovery while raising the risk of some side effects, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical organization.

The study found that 80 out of 100 otherwise healthy children would recover from an acute ear infection within a few days if given medication only to relieve pain or fevers. If all 100 were given antibiotics instead, 92 would be better in the same period, said Dr. Tumaini Coker, the study's lead author.

"But we would also expect three to 10 kids to develop rash and five to 10 to develop diarrhea," said Coker, a pediatrician at Mattel Children's Hospital at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Coker noted that the increased number of children in the study who benefited from treatment with antibiotics was similar to the number that could be expected to get side effects from the antibiotic treatment.

"Clinicians and parents need to know the benefits and side effects on how to manage their child's ear infection," Coker said.

'Radical' surgery uses patient's tooth to restore her sight

Doctors in Miami announced Wednesday that they had performed a vision-restoring surgery that used the 60-year-old patient's tooth.

The surgery, the first in the USA, was performed Labor Day weekend at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Afterward, patient Sharron Thornton was able to see for the first time in nine years. "Sharron was able to see 20/60 this morning. She was seeing only shadows a couple of weeks ago," says ophthalmologist and surgeon Victor Perez.

Sharron Kay Thornton talks with her lead surgeon Victor Perez who restored sight to her left eye at the University of Miami Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida. The procedure implanted one of her teeth in her eye, as a base to hold a prosthetic lens.

Thornton was blinded in 2000 by a reaction to a drug she was taking, which damaged her cornea. Perez likened Thornton's cornea to a dirty car windshield. He says her eye surface was too dry for a corneal implant, a standard treatment.

Thornton's eye tooth and part of her jaw bone were removed, then sculpted to create a hole in the tooth through which a optical cylinder lens fit. The tooth acts as a base to hold the lens.

The prosthesis was then placed in a pouch just under the skin of Thornton's cheek, where it would remain for several months to allow for the growth of a living capsule around it.

To surgically implant the tooth-lens prosthesis, a hole was made in the cornea and the capsule embedded over the top of the cornea. The mucous membrane was then pulled back over the eye like a blanket and a hole made for the lens.

"It's a pretty radical operation and can be disfiguring," says James Chodosh, a faculty member at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. But he says the results are worth it to patients.

Thornton says being able to see again is "like Christmas."

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-16-eye-tooth_N.htm