“We feel antibiotics are overused in the primary-care
setting,” says Jane M. Garbutt, MD,
research associate professor of medicine and the paper’s first author.
“There is a movement afoot, led by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, to try to improve the judicious use of antibiotics. We hope this
study provides scientific evidence that doctors can use with patients to
explain that an antibiotic is not likely to help an acute sinus infection” as one
in five antibiotics in the U.S. are prescribed for sinusitis.
“It’s a nasty disease,” Garbutt says. “People have
significant symptoms. They feel miserable and miss time from work. If an
antibiotic is not going to be of any benefit, then what is? That’s a question
we haven’t answered yet. But we are working on it.”
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