Single dose gentamicin treatment of urinary infections in children.

Sixty-nine children with urinary tract infections were randomly allocated to single dose gentamicin therapy (n = 39) or a seven day course of an appropriate antibiotic (n = 30). During the following six weeks the response to treatments did not differ and this was not altered by the child's clinical diagnosis, past history of infection or presence of radiological abnormalities. The poorest response was in those children with a history of recurrent infections (p less than 0.01) and/or radiological abnormality (p less than 0.02). Single dose therapy had significantly less suppression upon rectal (p less than 0.001) and periurethral (p less than 0.02) flora. There was a tendency for those not cured by single dose treatment to relapse whereas those treated by conventional therapy tended to be reinfected.