“It provides further evidence for what we’ve really suspected for a long time, that in the management of patients with acute sinusitis, antibiotics do not convey any additional benefit.“-Jay Piccirilloof, senior author

A new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), says most antibiotics are useless in treating sinusitis.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, studied 166 people.  They spilt up the group by giving some patients amoxicillin for ten days, and others a placebo.  The results were that amoxicillin had absolutely no affect on sinusitis.

The study also stated that the majority of sinus infections are caused by viruses, not bacteria, which explains why antibiotics don’t work.