World-wide clinical experience with norfloxacin: efficacy and safety

This review covers 2346 norfloxacin treated patients in clinical trials world wide. These studies show that 400 mg of norfloxacin b.i.d. was effective and compared favorably with other standard oral agents in the treatment of urinary tract infections, including complicated and recurrent infections in men. This regimen given b.i.d. or t.i.d. was also effective in the treatment of acute gastroenteritis due to common gastrointestinal pathogens such as enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Campylobacter spp. as well as less common organisms. A single 800 mg dose was effective in the treatment of gonorrhoea including patients with extra genito-urinary involvement and penicillinase producing strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Preliminary data from ongoing trials have also shown that norfloxacin is effective in the prophylaxis of traveller's diarrhoea and infections in the granulocytopenic patient. These various regimens of norfloxacin were well tolerated with a low incidence (less than 3%) of drug related adverse experiences. The most common adverse experiences were nausea, headache, dizziness, rash, elevation of liver enzymes and eosinophilia.