Children who take antibiotics may be at an increased risk of developing juvenile arthritis, according to a study from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del.
Each year, between 4,300 and 9,700 children under the age of 16 are diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, a form of autoimmune disease that involves chronic inflammation of the joints and eyes. According to the CDC, juvenile arthritis can lead to pain, vision loss and disability.
In this study, researchers used The Health Improvement Network database to study roughly 450,000 children, 152 who whom were diagnosed with juvenile arthritis.
After adjusting for other autoimmune conditions and previous infection, the researchers found the following.
1. Children who were prescribed antibiotics had twice the risk of developing juvenile arthritis compared to children the same age who were not prescribed antibiotics.
2. Upper respiratory tract infections treated with antibiotics were more strongly associated with juvenile arthritis than untreated upper respiratory tract infections.
3. Antiviral and antifungal drugs were not linked to juvenile arthritis, suggesting that risk for arthritis was specific to antibacterial medicines.
4. The more courses of antibiotics prescribed, the higher the associated risk.
5. The risk of developing juvenile arthritis was strongest within one year of receiving antibiotics.
Daniel Horton, MD, a postdoctoral research fellow working in the department of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, cautioned that additional research is needed to confirm the findings of the study and to understand what links antibiotic use and arthritis in children.
"A majority of children get antibiotics, but only about one in 1,000 get arthritis," said Dr. Horton. "So even if antibiotics do contribute to the development of arthritis, it's clearly not the only factor."
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