OVERVIEW OF CLINICAL-EXPERIENCE OF PEFLOXACIN IN GASTROINTESTINAL INFECTIONS

The course of a number of enteric infectious diseases can be shortened by appropriate antimicrobial therapy. The treatable causative agents may be suspected from the clinical presentation. The fluoroquinolones currently represent the drugs of choice for most of the treatable bact erial enteric infections. There is a low frequency of bacterial resist ance to the fluoroquinolones and they have favourable pharmacological properties, including therapeutic concentrations of the drug in serum, intestinal tissue, the lumen of the gut, and leucocytes and mononucle ar cells. These properties make the fluoroquinolones the treatment of choice for typhoid fever. In limited trials, pefloxacin has been succe ssfully used for the treatment of bacterial enteric infection and febr ile dysenteric diarrhoea (caused by strains of Shigella and Salmonella ), and typhoid fever. Future studies with pefloxacin are needed to det ermine the optimal dose and duration of treatment, and the indications relating to enteric infection, as well as the value and safety of the drug in paediatric populations.