A new way to treat infants with fevers who are at risk of serious bacterial infections including sepsis has been developed by researchers at Queen’s University.
In the largest study of its kind, the research team recruited almost 2,000 babies from 35 UK hospitals, in a bid to overcome the need for unnecessary stressful procedures and hospital stays for babies.
Titled the Febrile Infants Diagnostic Assessment and Outcome Study (FIDO) and funded by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, it also aims to prevent the overuse of antibiotics in infants.
Currently, any baby in the UK under the age of three months brought to hospital with a fever will undergo blood and urine tests, and will also face a lumbar puncture, which extracts spinal fluid.
They will also be given powerful intravenous antibiotics as a precaution, and the infants will often require overnight stays in hospital, adding stress for their families.
As they have underdeveloped immune systems, young babies are at higher risk of sepsis and other bacterial infections.
However, the new QUB study - the research of which has been published on The Lancet medical journal’s eClinicalMedicine webpage - found that simple routine blood tests could be used to identify the one-in-five babies that can be safely cared for without powerful antibiotics or a lumbar puncture.
Dr Thomas Waterfield is the chief investigator on the study and paediatric emergency medicine consultant and clinical lecturer in paediatrics at the Assessment
He said: “The FIDO study has clearly shown that we can safely identify a group of feverish infants that do not need painful lumbar puncture tests, powerful antibiotics and long hospital stays.
“Furthermore, parents have told us that they do not want us to always treat ‘just in case’ and if we can safely do less we should. Adopting a more tailored approach to care would bring us in line with Europe and USA and can reduce distress on children and their families.”
Clare Mills, laboratory lead on the study, added: “This tailored approach to care is already common practice in many parts of Europe and the USA, where they have access to a different blood test known as procalcitonin.
“Procalcitonin is not widely available in the UK and one of the key findings of the FIDO study was that tailored care can still be delivered without the need for expensive additional tests, such as procalcitonin.”
