Clinical experience with cefadroxil in upper and lower respiratory tract infections

Cefadroxil is a new semisynthetic oral cephalosporin with a broad spectrum of activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms. Absorption of cefadroxil is unaffected by food, its serum levels are prolonged and it is excreted in the urine at a relatively slow rate compared to cephalexin. In the treatment of 108 patient with upper or lower respiratory tract infections, cefadroxil effected 93% complete cures. Fifty-five of the patients had upper respiratory tract infections and fifty-three had lower respiratory tract infections; among them cefadroxil acheived clinical success rates of 100% and 96%, respectively. Cefadroxil was clinically successful in eight (89%) out of nine patients whose infections were caused by mixed aetiologies. The principal causative agents were Staphylococcus aureus, beta-haemolytic streptococci, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Overall bacterial eradication produced by cefadroxil was 112 (91%) of 123 organisms isolated from 108 patients. Reports of mild and transient side-effects in only 3.7% of the patients showed that the drug was well tolerated.