Two flu drugs help kids equally well: Japan study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two rival flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, work equally well to fight the symptoms of influenza in children, Japanese researchers reported on Thursday.

Doctors can feel free to choose either drug in treating children and may prefer Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline and known generically as zanamivir, for youths aged 10 to 19, they said.

They said their study was the first head-to-head comparison in children of the two drugs, in a class known as neuraminidase inhibitors.

The issue is important in Japan, where the drugs are heavily used and where doctors are still trying to determine if Roche's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, may have been linked with some suicides.

Dr. Norio Sugaya of Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama and colleagues studied nearly 350 children treated with either one of the drugs for influenza.

"More than 70 percent of the total amount of oseltamivir prescribed throughout the world each year is used in Japan," they wrote in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"Most patients in Japan with an influenza-like illness are now tested with rapid diagnostic tests; when results are positive, they are treated with a neuraminidase inhibitor, usually oseltamivir," they said.

But because of reports of psychiatric reactions, the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry of Japan suspended use of Tamiflu for patients aged 10 to 19.

"Accordingly, zanamivir will be prescribed widely for teenaged patients with influenza," the researchers wrote.  Continued...