Antibiotic use in children - off-label use

Zingg, Walter; Posfay Barbe, Klara

doi:10.2174/138945012800675777

Scientific article

Case report

English

Antibiotic use in children - off-label use

Contributors

Zingg, Walter; Posfay Barbe, Klara

Published in

Current drug targets, vol. 13, no. 7, p. 885-892

Publication date

2012

Abstract

Systemic antibiotics are the group of drugs most commonly used in children. Off-label antibiotic use in children is still common in the community and in hospitals, mostly because of young age, dosage, or frequency of drug application. There is an important incentive gap that hinders paediatric drug development resulting from a series of factors, such as small market size, a predominance of off-patent use, no incentives for generic drug manufacturers, and a greater complexity of drug development. The latter is due to varying capacities of drug absorption and metabolism during growth and maturation and the need for oral formulations in neonates and infants. High ethical barriers, combined with concerns of parents about drug safety, further complicate the conduct of clinical studies in children. While many off-patent antibiotics today are labelled for use in children, newer substances such as fluoroquinolones, azithromycin, linezolid, or daptomycin are not. This is of concern in the light of emerging multidrug-resistant pathogens.

Keywords

Ambulatory Care
Anti-Bacterial Agents/therapeutic use
Child
Child, Preschool
Drug Utilization Review
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Off-Label Use

UNIGE affiliation entities

Faculté de médecine / Section de médecine clinique / Département de pédiatrie, gynécologie et obstétrique

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

ZINGG, Walter, POSFAY BARBE, Klara. Antibiotic use in children - off-label use. In: Current drug targets, 2012, vol. 13, n° 7, p. 885–892. doi: 10.2174/138945012800675777

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:30787
DOI : 10.2174/138945012800675777
PMID : 22512387

Journal ISSN

1389-4501

631views

0downloads

Creation

24/10/2013 11:00:00

First validation

24/10/2013 11:00:00

Update

12/03/2026 11:11:55

Status update

12/03/2026 11:11:55

Last indexation

12/03/2026 11:12:35

Antibiotic use in children - off-label use

Contributors

Published in

Publication date

Abstract

Keywords

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

Main files (1)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

Technical informations

Creation

First validation

Update

Status update

Last indexation