Ciprofloxacin: in vivo genotoxicity studies

The fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin is widely used in antimicrobial therapy. It inhibits the bacterial gyrase and in high concentrations in vitro also t he functionally related eukaryotic topoisomerase-II, which resulted in geno toxic effects in several in vitro tests. In order to evaluate the relevance of these findings, ciprofloxacin was tested in vivo for genotoxic activity using the following test systems: micronucleus test in bone marrow of mice , cytogenetic chromosome analysis in Chinese hamster, dominant lethal assay in male mice and UDS tests in primary rat and mouse hepatocytes in vivo. T hese results are compared with already published in vitro and in vivo studi es with ciprofloxacin. All in vivo genotoxicity revealed no genotoxic effec t for ciprofloxacin. In addition, ciprofloxacin was found to be non-carcino genic in two rodent long-term bicassays. Therefore, ciprofloxacin is consid ered to be safe for therapeutic use. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.