The researchers stated that, because oral therapy can be started more quickly and is less painful than intravenous (IV) treatment, it should be the preferred treatment for children with moderate dehydration.
The research, performed in the emergency department of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, supports previous recommendations by expert groups such as the American Association of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization.
Gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestine, causes stomach pain, diarrhea, fever and vomiting in young children, especially during the winter months. The loss of fluids may cause a potentially dangerous dehydration and accounts for 10% of hospitalizations in American children under age five.
In the trial, 73 children were randomized to receive oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and 37 were randomized to receive intravenous fluid therapy (IVF). Patients in the ORT group received small amounts of fluid (Abbott’s Pedialyte) over a period of four hours. Less than one third of the group that received ORT required hospitalization, whereas almost half of the IVF group was hospitalized.
Half of the participants in both groups were rehydrated successfully in four hours. The time required to start therapy was less in the ORT group, at just under 20 minutes compared to 41 minutes in the IVF group.
“By the end of the study, we realized that most families prefer to start with the oral rehydration therapy for treatment of moderate dehydration,” said Dr Philip Spandorfer, a pediatric emergency physician at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and primary researcher on the study. “It is our hope that this study may support greater adoption of ORT by emergency physicians.”