Antibiotic prescriptions to children with periodic fever, aphthous stomatitis, pharyngitis and cervical adenitis

Journal article, 2024

Aim: To investigate the rate of dispensed antibiotic prescriptions to children and adolescents with PFAPA and compare this with the rate for children in the general population. Furthermore, to compare dispensed antibiotic prescription rates before and after a diagnosis of PFAPA was established. Methods: Patients aged 0–17 years and diagnosed with PFAPA between 1 January 2006 to 31 October 2017 were included retrospectively. Data on dispensed drug prescriptions were obtained from the Swedish National Prescribed Drug Register.

Results: The PFAPA cohort received more antibiotic prescriptions than the general population in all but one of the age groups and time periods that were analysed. The largest difference was seen in 2014–2017 in the youngest age group (0–4 years) when children with PFAPA received 1218 antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 person years compared to 345 in the general population (IRR 3.5; 95% CI 2.8–4.4). The yearly number of antibiotic prescriptions to PFAPA patients was reduced from 2.1 before diagnosis to 0.8 after diagnosis, a reduction of 62%.

Conclusion: This study shows higher rates of dispensed antibiotic prescriptions for children with PFAPA than in the general population. The reduction of prescriptions after an established PFAPA diagnosis indicates that antibiotics were previously incorrectly prescribed for PFAPA episodes.