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Erdem I. Cantekin, PhD
University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa

JAMA. 1994;272(3):203-204.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—In the abstract of their article, Dr Williams and colleagues¹ report that "studies of antibiotic prophylaxis of recurrent otitis media... had an RD [rate difference] of 0.11 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.03 to 0.19) favoring antibiotic treatment" and "studies of short-term patient outcomes of OME [otitis media with effusion]... had an RD favoring antibiotics of 0.16 (95% CI, 0.03 to 0.29)." They then conclude, "Antibiotics appear to have beneficial but limited effect on recurrent otitis media and short-term resolution of OME." Given that many journal readers read only the abstracts, the above is positively misleading.

The prophylaxis trials have significant heterogeneity (RDs, 0.011 to 0.366; q=17.5; P<.03), a fact not mentioned by the authors. The RD of 0.11 of Williams et al is calculated by combining studies using different drugs with significantly different effects. The RD for sulfisoxazole (0.20) is significantly higher than the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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