Evaluating the Necessity of Antibiotics in the Treatment of Acute Epididymitis in Pediatric Patients: A Literature Review of Retrospective Studies and Data Analysis.

OBJECTIVES: This literature review and data analysis aims to evaluate the percentage of pediatric patients with acute epididymitis found to have bacterial etiology and the percentage of patients in these studies that were treated with antibiotic therapy versus conservative therapy.

METHODS: A search of EBSCO through January 13, 2016, using the key words epididymitis or epididymo-orchitis and child, children, or pediatric, identified 542 potential studies.Twenty-seven retrospective studies met the inclusion criteria, containing patients aged 21 years or younger with acute epididymitis or epididymoorchitis. The number and age of patients, urine cultures and urinalysis results, number of patients treated with antibiotics, and incidence were extracted.

RESULTS: A total of 1496 patients with acute epididymitis were identified. A urinalysis was obtained for 1124 patients, and 190 (16.9%) were positive. Aurine culturewas obtained for 670 patients, and 100 (14.9%) were positive. Fourteen studies addressed antibiotic administration wherein 652 patients were with acute epididymitis and 554 (85%) received antibiotics.Of 502 patients with urinalysis results, urine culture results, and antibiotic treatment rates, 54 (10.8%) were positive for a bacterial source. Antibiotics were administered to 410 (81.7%) of these 502 patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Practitioners should consider only prescribing antibiotics to patients with acute epididymitis if there is an abnormal urinalysis or urine culture.