Treating “Pink Eye” Reconsidered

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, United Kingdom undertook a randomized double-blind trial to compare the effectiveness of chloramphenicol eye drops with placebo in children with a clinical diagnosis of acute infective conjunctivitis. Chloramphenicol was chosen because it is commonly prescribed in the UK and has a low rate of resistance. The authors enrolled 326 children from 12 general medical practices, aged 6 months to 12 years, who were randomly assigned to receive chloramphenicol (n=163) or placebo (n=163) eye drops. To minimize inclusion of children with allergic conjunctivitis, recruitment occurred between October and April of 2001–02, 2002–03, and 2003–04. Children were excluded if they were known to be allergic to chloramphenicol, had taken an antibiotic within the previous 48 hours, were immunocompromised, or had evidence of severe infection (eg, periorbital cellulitis).

For baseline assessments, a research nurse assessed clinical severity, usually within 4 hours of recruitment. Eye swabs were taken from the worst-affected eye for bacterial and viral analysis. Overall, …