The place of quinolones in everyday clinical practice

The new fluoroquinolones have many attributes and relatively few drawbacks. As a result, they have been rapidly adopted for the treatment of serious bacterial infections. The currently available fluoroquinolones are particularly effective for the treatment of urinary tract infections, bacterial diarrhea, enteric fever, gonorrhea, chancroid, skin and soft tissue infections, acute and chronic gram-negative osteomyelitis, gram-negative pneumonias, serious infections due to a variety of gram-negative bacilli, and in the eradication of the meningococcal carrier state. As we learn more about the properties of these compounds, the number and variety of infections for which they are useful continues to expand.