[Atypical mycobacteria infections in AIDS. Role and diagnosis].

Atypical mycobacteria are responsible for systemic infections which occur late in the course of AIDS. The Mycobacterium avium intracellulare complex is the most frequently blamed species. Clinical and laboratory data are not specific; they consist of protracted fever, gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders entangled with the numerous manifestations of the multiple pathologies observed in these patients.

[Value of quinolones in the treatment of lower respiratory tract infections caused by intracellular organisms, excluding mycobacteria].

In vitro studies of quinolones against intracellular pathogens responsible for lower respiratory tract infections have shown that growth inhibition varies with the strain and with the drug. Following administration of quinolones, drug levels in the lower respiratory tract are similar to or greater than serum levels. Quinolones penetrate readily into cells.

A multicenter study of lomefloxacin and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole in the treatment of uncomplicated acute pyelonephritis.

A total of 63 adult patients with uncomplicated acute pyelonephritis were enrolled in a multicenter, randomized comparison of lomefloxacin (400 mg orally once daily for 14 days) and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX, 160/800 mg orally twice daily for 14 days). Study participants were predominantly female (70% in the lomefloxacin group and 80% in the TMP/SMX group). Escherichia coli was isolated from pretreatment urine cultures in 87.

[Varicella in pregnancy after the 20th week of amenorrhea].

We report five cases of varicella pneumonia among ten otherwise healthy pregnant women who were admitted in our hospital between 1986 and 1991 with chickenpox. The precise frequency of this rare complication is not well known actually but analysis of the literature shows that the mortality rate is about 20%. Beside the problem of the fetal varicella syndrome, the other complication is the severe varicella of the neonate which can appear when varicella occurs in the mother within 5 days before, and 2 days after delivery.

Efficacy of intravenous ofloxacin: a French multicentre trial in 185 patients.

The efficacy of intravenous ofloxacin therapy (200 mg 12-hourly) followed, when appropriate, by oral administration of the same dose was evaluated in an open multicentre trial involving 185 patients in 31 French hospitals. Dosage adjustment was made for patients in renal failure. Infection was hospital-acquired in 35 cases, 53 patients required admission to an intensive care unit.

[Treatment of pneumonia caused by Legionella, Mycoplasma, Chlamydiae and Rickettsia using ofloxacin].

To asses the efficacy and the safety of ofloxacin as therapy of pneumonia caused by intracellular pathogens, 35 patients were studied (26 male, 9 female, mean age: 52.5 +/- 16.6 years).

[Contribution of experimental models to the treatment of respiratory tract infections].

The need for more effective and potentially less toxic antimicrobial agents than aminoglycosides for treatment of gram negative bacilli pneumonia specially Pseudomonas aeruginosa, explains the interest for experimental models of pneumonia. These models allow to study the efficacy and safety of antibiotics alone or in combination. Aminoglycosides and new quinolones are more effective than beta-lactams for life threatening infection with high inoculum, the only exception to this finding has been for N-formimidoyl thienamycin, whereas for less severe infections aminoglycosides and beta-lactams are equivalent in efficacy.

[Prospective randomized controlled study of a ceftazidime and pefloxacin combination versus a ceftazidime and amikacin combination in the empirical treatment of pneumonia and nosocomial septicemia at intensive care units].

Three hundred fifty-two patients from 20 intensive care units, suffering from pneumonia or nosocomial septicemia were treated at random with either ceftazidime + pefloxacin (CP) or ceftazidime + amikacin (CA). After exclusion of patients who did not comply with the protocol and of cases where no organism was isolated, 108 assessable patients received CP and 114 received CA. The cure rates achieved in infections due to a single organism were 82 per cent in the CA group and 62 per cent in the CP group.