Abstract
Introduction Antibiotic use for acute otitis media(AOM)is one of the major sources of antimicrobial resistance.However,the effective minimal antibiotic duration for AOM remains unclear.Moreover,guidelines often recommend broad ranges(5-10 days)of antibiotic use,yet the clinical impact of such a wide window has not been assessed.Methods We systematically searched PubMed/MEDLINE,Embase,Scopus,Web of Science,and Cochrane Library from database inception to 6 October 2021.Network meta-analysis was conducted on randomized controlled trials that assessed antibiotic treatment for AOM in children(PROSPERO CRD42020196107).Results For amoxicillin and amoxicillin-clavulanate,7-day regimens were noninferior to 10-day regimens in clinical responses[amoxicillin:risk ratio(RR)0.919(95%CI 0.820-1.031),amoxicillin-clavulanate:RR 1.108(0.957-1.282)],except for ≤ 2 years.For the third-generation cephalosporins,7-day and 10-day regimens had similar clinical responses compared to placebo[7-day:RR 1.420(1.190-1.694),10-day:RR 1.238(1.125-1.362)compared to placebo].However,5-day regimens of amoxicillin-clavulanate and third-generation cephalosporins were inferior to 10-day regimens.Compared to amoxicillin,a shorter treatment duration was tolerable with amoxicillin-clavulanate.Conclusions Our findings indicated that 10 days of antibiotic use may be unnecessarily long,while the treatment duration should be longer than 5 days.Otherwise,5-day regimens would be sufficient for a modest treatment goal.Our findings revealed that the current wide range of recommended antibiotic durations may have influenced the clinical outcome of AOM,and a narrower antibiotic duration window should be re-established.