Rifamycin antibiotics for treatment of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea.

Objective: To review the existing data on use of the rifamycin class of antibiotics as therapy for Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD).

Data Sources: A literature search was performed using PubMed (1996-January 2008), abstracts from the International Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (September 2007), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (October 2007), Salix Pharmaceuticals Web site (January 2008), ActivBiotics Web site (January 2008), Google Scholar, and searches of selected bibliographies using the terms rifamycin, ansamycins, rifampin, rifabutin, rifampicin, rifaximin, rifalazil, Clostridium difficile, C. difficile, and CDAD.