cefoxitin and Intestinal-Diseases

In a prospective, randomized, single-blind trial, we studied 112 adults with intra-abdominal infections and compared antibiotic therapy with cefoxitin plus placebo to therapy with tobramycin plus clindamycin. Seventy-five percent of patients receiving tobramycin-clindamycin and 71% of those receiving cefoxitin-placebo had either shock, bacteremia, malnutrition, alcoholism, rapidly or ultimately fatal underlying disease, infection originating from the distal small bowel or colon, or had had failed therapy before treatment ("high-risk" group). One third of the patients in both groups grew bacteria in the initial culture resistant to the antibiotic regimen used. Ten patients receiving cefoxitin-placebo (17%) and 11 receiving tobramycin-clindamycin (21%) had recurrence of infection or died of infection (clinical failures). Nineteen failures occurred in high-risk patients (p less than 0.05) and 17 were in patients that had antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the initial culture (p less than 0.01). Adverse effects were rare and remitted after antibiotics were stopped. Our results suggest that both cefoxitin and tobramycin-clindamycin are appropriate antibiotic regimens to treat intra-abdominal infections. Clinical failure is more common in high-risk patients and when antibiotic-resistant organisms are isolated from initial cultures.

Topics: Adult; Alcoholism; Bacterial Infections; Cefoxitin; Clindamycin; Clinical Trials as Topic; Drug Resistance, Microbial; Drug Therapy, Combination; Enterobacteriaceae; Humans; Intestinal Diseases; Nutrition Disorders; Prospective Studies; Random Allocation; Risk; Tobramycin

Ninety patients infected with presumed penicillin resistant anaerobes were randomized to cefoxitin or clindamycin-aminoglycoside. Cefoxitin was comparable to clindamycin-aminoglycoside in cures of intestinal associated, 16 of 26 versus 11 of 21, and pelvic infections, 20 of 20 versus 22 of 23. Cefoxitin-resistant facultative-aerobic gram-negative rods were found in 16 of 45 patients with intestine associated infection. Probable antibiotic associated nephrotoxicity was less frequent in the patients in the cefoxitin group, zero of 46 versus seven of 44, p less than 0.05, although a false creatinine elevation was noted more frequent, seven of 46 versus one of 44, p less than 0.05. Infections causing failure in patients in the cefoxitin group more frequently contained cefoxitin resistant gram-negative rods at the time of failure than did infections causing failure in those in the clindamycin-aminoglycoside group that contained gentamicin-resistant gram-negative rods, eight of eight versus zero of eight, p less than 0.001. Cefoxitin may be adequate therapy for many patients with mixed anaerobic/aerobic infections; however, the addition of an aminoglycoside may be prudent in those with known, or suspected, cefoxitin resistant gram-negative rods.

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aminoglycosides; Bacterial Infections; Cefoxitin; Clindamycin; Clinical Trials as Topic; Drug Resistance, Microbial; Female; Genital Diseases, Female; Humans; Intestinal Diseases; Male; Prospective Studies; Random Allocation