THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF TISSUE PHARMA COKINETICS OF ANTIBIOTICS

Antibiotic therapy is constantly changing. Among the criteria used to choose the right antibiotic, tissue pharmacokinetics provides useful, though controversial, information on drug distribution in organs and b ody fluids at potential sites of infection. Various study models have established i) the high rate of penetration of third-generation cephal osporins, aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones into cerebrospinal flui d when meninges are inflamed; and ii) high levels of macrolides and fl uoroquinolones in lung parenchyma and other respiratory sites of infec tion. These data should be analyzed in terms of pharmacodynamic activi ties in sites in the cerebrospinal fluid where the minimum inhibitory concentration and the minimum bactericidal concentration have been det ermined for the pathogen, In other situations, the criteria with the m ost clinical significance is the correlation between tissue concentrat ions and clinical outcome. There has been much progress in targeted (l iposomes) antibiotic therapy with promising advances toward better tis sue distribution of drugs.