Have a sore throat? You may want to check your acne medication.
Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine have found a link between taking oral antibiotics and an increased incidence of pharyngitis among users.
David Margolis, the Medical School researcher who led the study, tested to see whether acne patients who took oral antibiotics were more likely to contract group A strep. His goal was to see whether prolonged use of oral antibiotics could cause increased bacterial resistance.
Co-researcher and third-year Medical student Eli Kupperman explained that “the concern is that antibiotics will stop working.” He added that this concern has existed for a while and is often studied.
Margolis chose acne patients because he “wanted a healthy population to study.” Also, medical databases indicated that individuals who took oral antibiotics for acne treatment were more likely to report signs of upper respiratory infections.
Kupperman explained that although oral antibiotics are not typically the first line of treatment for acne — doctors generally prescribe skin-cleaning medicines and topical antibiotics first — their use among acne patients isn’t uncommon.
For this study, the researchers set up tables and booths at Penn and recruited 500 test subjects. The researchers swabbed students’ throats for bacterial cultures and then graded the severity of each students’ acne. Participants submitted surveys and new throat cultures throughout the academic year.
In the study, authors found that pharyngitis — sore throat — and upper respiratory tract infections were more common among oral antibiotic users.
However, they found no correlation between oral antibiotic usage and group A strep. On the contrary, they found that oral antibiotic use led to a 70 percent decrease in one type of bacteria — S. aureus, which can cause staph infections — and no signs of increased medication resistance in patients.
Kupperman cautions that the recent study was not adequately set up to answer whether antibiotics can cause bacterial resistance.
“The bacteria evidence can spurn new studies,” he said. “But it can’t prove causation.”
Margolis believes future studies should be performed using recent innovations in genetic testing and computer analyses. He explained these studies would be expensive, but added that researchers would be able to test patients for more strains of bacteria than they can with a basic throat culture.
Margolis said the ramifications for this study are still unclear. He doesn’t believe acne patients should stop taking oral antibiotics because of this evidence. “We weren’t doing this to say antibiotics are a bad practice for acne,” he said.
However, the results have caused him to question whether people should be concerned about antibiotics causing bacterial resistance — a commonly held theory. “Maybe we shouldn’t be as concerned with long term antibiotic use,” he said.
