Related Experiment Videos
Antimicrobial penetration into polymorphonuclear leukocytes and alveolar macrophages
1Section of General Medicine, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN 55417.
Seminars in Respiratory Infections
|June 1, 1991
Summary
Understanding how antimicrobials penetrate lung cells is key to treating intracellular infections. This knowledge helps doctors choose better pneumonia therapies by knowing which drugs reach bacteria inside cells.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology
- Pharmacology
- Infectious Diseases
Background:
- Intracellular bacterial infections frequently affect the lungs and can lead to chronic illness.
- Intracellular bacteria may evade standard antibiotic treatments due to poor drug penetration into host cells.
- Optimizing antimicrobial therapy for pneumonia requires understanding drug concentrations within infected cells.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the intracellular penetration of various antimicrobial agents used for pneumonia.
- To provide data that can help refine the selection of antibiotics for treating intracellular lung infections.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on antimicrobial penetration into cells.
- Categorization of antimicrobials based on their ability to penetrate cells (poor, intermediate, avid).
Main Results:
- Lipid-insoluble drugs (penicillin, cephalosporins, aminoglycosides, trimethoprim, imipenem) show poor intracellular penetration.
- Drugs like isoniazid, tetracycline, and lincomycin have intermediate penetration.
- Chloramphenicol, rifampin, ethambutol, quinolones, lincosamides, and macrolides are concentrated within cells.
Conclusions:
- Antimicrobial intracellular concentration varies significantly among different drug classes.
- Further research is needed to correlate intracellular drug levels with clinical outcomes for pneumonia treatment.
- Standardized evaluation of antimicrobial penetration can improve the clinical application of in vitro data for pneumonia therapy.