Title

Study of antibiotic consumption using a novel unit among indoor pediatric patients in India

Authors

Aniruddha Ghosh¹, Nabanita Banerjee², Lopamudra Kirtania³ & Shah Newaz Ahmed^3,*

Affiliation

¹Intern, Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Medical College and Hospital, Coochbehar, West Bengal, India; ²Department of Community Medicine, Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Medical College and Hospital, Coochbehar, West Bengal, India; ³Department of Pharmacology, Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Medical College and Hospital, Coochbehar, West Bengal, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Aniruddha Ghosh - E-mail: ghoshaniruddhaslg@gmail.com
Nabanita Banerjee - E-mail: kunduban.nab@gmail.com
Lopamudra Kirtania - E-mail: drlopamudrakirtania@gmail.com

Shah Newaz Ahmed - E-mail: drahmed.rgkmc@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received September 1, 2025; Revised September 30, 2025; Accepted September 30, 2025, Published September 30, 2025

Abstract

Unlike adult population, the Defined Daily Dose/100 Patient Days (DDD/100 PD) cannot be used as a standard unit in pediatric studies. In this study, we measured antibiotic consumption using standard unit’s used- DDD/100 PD and DDD per 1000 Kilogram-Days (DDD/1000 Kg-D) and a novel unit- DDD/100 PD/ Mean Body Weight (DDD/100 PD/MBW). The study cohort was sub-divided into four sub-cohorts (n1=100, n2=100, n3=100, n4=92) with increasing mean body weight (in Kgs) of 6.21±1.46, 9.56±1.00, 13.84±1.59 and 22.94±5.18, respectively. The weight based sub-cohorts sought to explore the most suitable unit for the paediatric population. The Pearson correlation coefficient between DOT and DDD/100 PD, DDD/1000 Kg-D and DDD/100 PD/MBW, were -0.859, 0.981 and 0.975, respectively. Thus, DDD/100 PD/MBW is a novel unit in paediatric drug quantification independent of body weight and age.

Keywords

Pediatric drug audit, antibiotic consumption, defined daily dose

Citation

Ghosh et al. Bioinformation 21(9): 3381-3386 (2025)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.