New Physician Guidelines for Treating Children’s Ear Infections

The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Family Physicians released their new treatment recommendations for children who suffer from Otitis Media with Effusion or OME (commonly known as ‘fluid’ or an ear infection).

New recommendations include

• additional information on pneumatic otoscopy and tympanometry to improve diagnostic certainty;
• expanded information on speech and language assessment for children with OME;
• new recommendations for managing OME in children who fail a newborn hearing screen and for evaluating at-risk children;
• a new recommendation against using topical intranasal steroids;
• a new recommendation against adenoidectomy for a primary indication of OME in children under 4 years of age;
• a new recommendation for assessing OME outcomes.

Clinicians should continue to avoid antibiotics and myringotomy (tube) surgery (under aged 4).

More information can be found here.