[New options for treatment of intraabdominal infections: tigecycline]

Tigecycline is a new antimicrobial agent; it is the first in a new class of antibiotics, the glycylcyclines, with properties conferring the ability to overcome many common resistance mechanisms, thus allowing its use for many serious and life-threatening infections for which the use of other antibiotics is no longer appropriate. It has a wide antibacterial spectrum including most methicillin-resistant Staphylococci, vancomycin-resistant Enterococci, ESBL-producing Gram negative bacteria, and other MDR Gram negative bacteria such as Acinetobacter, and Stenotrophomonas. It has good antibacterial activity also against anaerobes and atypical pathogens. Tigecycline is available only as parenteral formulation. It has a high volume of distribution (>10 l/kg), and long half-life (36 hrs). It has been approved in USA and Europe for the treatment of complicated skin and soft tissue infections and for the complicated community acquired intra-abdominal infections. Phase III studies for treatment of community acquired and nosocomial acquire pneumonia, and sepsis sustained by multi-drug-resistant pathogens are ongoing.