Needle size for vaccination procedures in children and adolescents.

CONCLUSIONS: Using 25 mm needles (either 23 G or 25 G) for intramuscular vaccination procedures in the anterolateral thigh of infants using the WHO injection technique probably reduces the occurrence of local reactions while achieving a comparable immune response to 25 G 16 mm needles. These findings are applicable to healthy infants aged two to six months receiving combination DTwP vaccines with a reactogenic whole-cell pertussis antigen component. These vaccines are predominantly used in low- and middle-income countries. The applicability of the findings to vaccines with acellular pertussis components and other vaccines with different reactogenicity profiles is uncertain. PMID: 30091147 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Cochrane Database Syst Rev Source Type: research