Treatment of Chronic Urinary Infections with Fosfomycin

Prof. R. Gómez Lus, Cátedra de Microbiología, Facultad de Medicina. Calle Domingo Mairal, sn., Zaragoza 9 (Spain) Summary The authors used fosfomycin, a new bactericidal antibiotic with a wide range of applications, in the treatment of 35 patients with chronic urinary infections, the majority of which were chronic pyelonephritis or complicated processes which had resisted previous antibiotics. Two thirds of the patients were treated only with the new antibiotic and the other third with a combination of fosfomycin and ampicillin. In the urine cultures, 43 different germs were isolated, of which 76.7% were affected by fosfomycin (including 8 P. aeruginosa and 5 Proteus) and 25.5% to ampicillin. Bacteriologically speaking, 65.1% of the original germs were irradicated. The clinical results were immediate cure in 24 cases (68.6%), which persisted in 16 (45.7%) 6 weeks after treatment was completed. Besides there were 3 patients cured of the original germs who later were re-infected by different germs. Including these cases the percentage of cures raises to 54.3%. This proportion is considered to be comparatively important given the difficult nature of the diseases treated and the germs causing them. No symptoms of toxicity or intolerance were found, and the doses of fosfomycin used may be increased considerably, with a greater possibility of cures on a short and long-term basis. 1 Published in Archos esp. Urol. 26: 3–18 (1973).