Antipyretic drugs for children

Fever is common in children1 and can cause distress, parental anxiety, and—in some parents—“fever phobia.”2 Rationales for treating childhood fever include relieving distress (allowing the child to sleep, rest, or feed) and lowering temperature, often in the hope of reducing the risk of febrile convulsions. Non-pharmacological treatments include loosening clothing, reducing the ambient temperature, and encouraging the child to take fluids. The pharmacological options are paracetamol and ibuprofen, and parents commonly give both drugs to a child with fever.3 But should these drugs be used together, or alternately, and for which children, and at what dose and frequency? Advice is inconsistent, leading to confusion and frustration among parents, nurses, and doctors.

Both drugs are licensed and widely purchased over the counter in Europe for children: sales in 2004 were £128m for paediatric ibuprofen and £277m for paracetamol (€186m and €403m, $233m and $504m; personal communication, Boots Healthcare International). Paracetamol and ibuprofen exert their effects at differing points in the pyrogenic pathways,4 so synergistic action is plausible.

We searched Medline (1966 to March 2006), the Cochrane …