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Prescribed oral antibiotics for acne among GPs did not align with guideline recommendations

Prescribing behavior for oral antibiotics among general practitioners for treating acne did not align with current guidelines, and exceeded recommended duration of therapy, according to recently published study results.

Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients aged 12 to 22 years who were treated for acne and included in THIN, a medical record database used by general practitioners (GPs) in the United Kingdom to track patients’ information. Medication costs were analyzed by using data from the National Health Service.

There were 79,565 patients (55.2% male; median age, 16.8 years) who met criteria, with 104,914 antibiotic prescriptions. Lymecycline (39.4%), oxetetracycline (30%), minocycline (18.9%) and tetracycline (1.4%) were the most commonly prescribed antibiotics. Therapy had a mean duration of 175.1 days (95% CI, 174.0-176.2 days).

More than half of the antibiotic courses (56%) exceeded 3 months, 29% exceeded 6 months and 12% exceeded 1 year. In addition, 62% of the antibiotic courses were not associated with a topical retinoid.

“If all regions were to achieve uses similar to the region with the shortest mean duration of therapy, approximately 3.3 million antibiotic days per year could be avoided in the United Kingdom,” the researchers wrote.

“In this large, retrospective cohort study of patients with acne treated by GPs in THIN, we found many courses of oral tetracyclines were not aligned with the current guideline recommendations to limit the duration of therapy to 3 to 6 months and to use concomitant topical retinoids in all patients receiving oral antibiotics,” the researchers wrote. “Only 38% of patients had a topical retinoid prescribed in this cohort.”

“Antibiotic overuse and resistance continues to be a global problem,” the researchers concluded. “We all need to practice judicious use of antibiotics.”  – by Bruce Thiel

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.