• Shawn J Rangel, Brett R Anderson, Rajendu Srivastava, Samir S Shah, Paul Ishimine, Mythili Srinivasan, Matthew Bryan, Wu Gong, Matt Hall, Russell Localio, Xianqun Luan, Seema Anandalwar, Ron Keren, and Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings (PRIS) Network.
• *Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital Boston-Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA †Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York-Presbyterian, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, New York, NY ‡Division of Inpatient Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah Health, Sciences Center, Salt Lake City, UT §Primary Children's Hospital, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, UT ¶Institute for Healthcare Delivery Research, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, UT ||Divisions of Hospital Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH **Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO ††Division of General Pediatrics, Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA ‡‡Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA §§Children's Hospital Association, Overland Park, KS ¶¶Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA.
• Ann. Surg. 2016 Jul 15.

ObjectiveTo compare treatment failure leading to hospital readmission in children with complicated appendicitis who received oral versus intravenous antibiotics after discharge.BackgroundAntibiotics are often employed after discharge to prevent treatment failure in children with complicated appendicitis, although existing studies comparing intravenous and oral antibiotics for this purpose are limited.MethodsWe identified all patients aged 3 to 18 years undergoing appendectomy for complicated appendicitis, who received postdischarge antibiotics at 35 childrens hospitals from 2009 to 2012. Discharge codes were used to identify study subjects from the Pediatric Health Information System database, and chart review confirmed eligibility, treatment assignment, and outcomes. Exposure status was based on outpatient antibiotic therapy, and analysis used optimal and full matching methods to adjust for demographic and clinical characteristics. Treatment failure (defined as an organ-space infection) requiring inpatient readmission was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included revisits from any cause to either the inpatient or emergency department setting.ResultsIn all, 4579 patients were included (median: 99/hospital), and utilization of intravenous antibiotics after discharge ranged from 0% to 91.7% across hospitals. In the matched analysis, the rate of treatment failure was significantly higher for the intravenous group than the oral group [odds ratio (OR) 1.74, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05-2.88; risk difference: 4.0%, 95% CI 0.4-7.6%], as was the rate of all-cause revisits (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.44-3.11; risk difference: 9.4%, 95% CI 4.7-14.2%). The rate of peripherally inserted central catheter line complications was 3.2% in the intravenous group, and drug reactions were rare in both groups (intravenous: 0.7%, oral: 0.5%).ConclusionsCompared with oral antibiotics, use of intravenous antibiotics after discharge in children with complicated appendicitis was associated with higher rates of both treatment failure and all-cause hospital revisits.

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