SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacoepidemiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1646638
Dental safety of short-term doxycycline use in children under 8 years: A systematic review and metaanalysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Model Rural Health Research Unit, Karikalampakkam, Puducherry, India
- 2Vector Control Research Centre (ICMR), Puducherry, India
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Doxycycline is widely used to treat various bacterial infections and has significant global implications, especially as the preferred medication for scrub typhus and leptospirosis. However, its use is limited in children below 8 years of age due to potential adverse effects on teeth and bones. This study aims to assess the risk of dental adverse events associated with doxycycline, a tetracycline-class antibiotic, in children under 8 years of age.In this review, we searched PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar for studies published until November 2023. We included studies administering doxycycline to children under 8 years, focusing on dose, duration, and dental adverse events to assess the safety of doxycycline.A total of 325 articles were initially retrieved, of which 5 studies were available for analysis. This review included information on 162 children who were treated with doxycycline between the ages of 0 and 8 years. The median age at doxycycline administration was 4.25 years and interquartile range (IQR) of 2.065 to 5.563 years. The oral dosage, based on weight, had a median of 2.3 mg/kg/day, with an IQR of 1.525 to 5.438 mg/kg/day. The median duration of drug administration was 8.5 days and the IQR of 6 to 12.5 days. We found a pooled proportion of adverse events of 0.21 (95% CI: 0.13 -0.28).This review suggests that the occurrence of teeth-related adverse events with short-term doxycycline use is minimal, with a low incidence reported. While these findings offer a preliminary basis for the use of doxycycline in children under 8 years of age, the limited number of studies underscore the need for further research to evaluate its therapeutic use and implication for paediatric guidelines.
Keywords: Adverse event, antibiotics, children under 8 years, Dental safety, Doxycycline
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rajan, Gopal, Periyathambi and Kuttiatt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Vijesh Sreedhar Kuttiatt, Vector Control Research Centre (ICMR), Puducherry, India
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