Girgis 1995.

Study characteristics
Methods	Trial design: randomized Time period/duration of trial: unclear, before 1995 Duration of follow‐up: 4 weeks
Participants	Setting: hospital Location: Cairo, Egypt Age: children < 16 years. Mean age (+/‐ SD) was 10.34 (+/‐ 2.89) in cefixime group, 10.05 (+/‐ 3.48) in ceftriaxone group, 9.03 (+/‐ 9.1) in the aztreonam group Gender: male = 67, female = 57 Health status of participants: not recorded Inclusion criteria: signs and symptoms suggestive of acute enteric fever without complications of disease
Interventions	Cefixime: oral, 15‐20 mg/kg/day in 2 doses for a minimum of 14 days Ceftriaxone: IM in gluteal region, 50‐70 mg/kg/day (maximum of 4 g) once daily for 5 days Aztreonam: IM in gluteal region, 50‐70 mg/kg/dose (maximum of 8 g) every 8 h for 3 days Antibiotics continued beyond period specified until 2 afebrile days were observed
Outcomes	Clinical cure: definition not specified Bacteriologic eradication: not specified, but blood, urine and stool cultures taken before therapy, at end of day 3 of therapy, and 2 and 4 weeks post‐therapy Time to defervescence: days until disappearance of fever (afebrile defined as fever < 37.5 °C) Length of hospital stay: not defined Mean laboratory values on day 10 of treatment ‐ full blood count, liver and renal function tests before treatment, end of therapy and 2 and 4 weeks post‐therapy Cost analysis of therapy: calculated according to the method specified in Kerr 1992 Adverse events: not predefined, "side reactions" and adverse events discussed as part of results
Organism type and antimicrobial susceptibility	All MDR‐S typhi (resistant to chloramphenicol, ampicillin and co‐trimoxazole by disk diffusion)
Notes	165 children enrolled and randomized, but only analysed those 124 participants with MDR‐S typhi who completed 4 weeks of follow‐up
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	"Computer‐generated" list for randomization
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No mention of methods
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No details given
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No details given
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	Some loss to follow‐up ‐ exact numbers not clearly reported
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	Length of hospital stay prespecified as an outcome measure but no clear data were reported Data for culture results at various time points were not reported
Other bias	Low risk	No obvious conflicts of interest reported