Clinical experience with pefloxacin in the therapy of typhoid fever

Thirty hospitalized patients (22 men and eight women), aged between 15 and 41 years (mean = 25.4 years), with severe proven typhoid sepsis were treated with pefloxacin at daily dose of 1200 mg, divided in three doses, intravenously for the first five days and orally for the following ten days of treatment. All patients completely recovered from infection and pathogens were eradicated after 30 days of follow-up. In none of the patients was a relapse registered during the follow-up or enteric carrier state after disease. Pefloxacin therapy was well tolerated by all patients: in five patients a mild and transient epigastric pain and in one patient a mild and transient nausea were registered. Pefloxacin is a safe and effective agent for therapy of typhoid fever.