The SCOUT Study: "Short Course Therapy for Urinary Tract Infections in Children"

The SCOUT Study is a multi-center, centrally randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled non-inferiority clinical trial of 746 children ages two months (at least 36 weeks gestation from birth for subjects \< two years of age) to 10 years with a confirmed diagnosis of a urinary tract infection (UTI) to evaluate 672 for the study's primary outcome measure. UTI is one of the most common serious bacterial infections during childhood. Escherichia coli (E. coli) isolates account for 80-90 percent of all outpatient UTIs in children. Although antibiotics are the first treatment choice for urinary tract infections, antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli, the most common cause of UTIs, are increasing worldwide. The study will enroll 746 children who have demonstrated clinical improvement five days after starting the originally prescribed antibiotic (afebrile and asymptomatic) and they will be randomized either to the standard-course arm or the short-course arm at a 1:1 ratio. Subjects will be enrolled over approximately a four and a half year period. Study duration for each individual subject will be approximately five weeks. The study product will consist of trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX), cefixime, cefdinir, cephalexin and the corresponding placebos. The primary objective of this study is to determine if halting antimicrobial therapy in subjects who have exhibited clinical improvement 5 days after starting antibiotic therapy (short course therapy) have the same failure rate (symptomatic UTI) through visit Day 11-14 as subjects who continue to take antibiotics for an additional 5 days (standard course therapy). The secondary objectives are: 1) to determine if short-course therapy compared to standard course therapy results in similar numbers of children experiencing a recurrent urinary tract infection (relapse and reinfection; 2) to determine if short-course therapy compared to standard course therapy results in similar numbers of children with asymptomatic bacteriuria; 3) to determine if short-course therapy compared to standard course therapy results in similar numbers of children with gastrointestinal colonization of antimicrobial resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumoniae); 4) to determine if short-course therapy compared to standard course therapy results in similar numbers of subjects presenting with clinical symptoms that may be related to UTI; 5) to determine if the number of subjects with positive urine culture prior to or at visit Day 11-14 is similar after short-course therapy compared to standard course therapy.