[Cephalosporin antibiotics from microbiologic viewpoint. A comparison of antibacterial and pharmacokinetic properties].

With the necessity not only of differentiating between effectiveness and non-effectiveness, as in the earlier phases of chemotherapy, but also of detecting graduated differences in effect quantitatively, animal experiment and clinical trial have been shown to be no longer adequate. In a correlating comparison of antibacterial activity with the drug level in vivo as the two decisive basic elements of chemotherapeutic effect, new and interesting possibilities arise for the evaluation of antibiotics. In a comparative evaluation of nine different cephalosporin antibiotics, not only the objective antibacterial and pharmacokinetic properties are taken into consideration, but also the dosage recommendations of the manufacturers as subjective factors. The result is that the cephalosporins in the treatment of gram-positive infections (except enterococci) are almost equivalent. In the gram-negative field, there are marked differences which produce a different species-dependent therapeutic value for the various preparations. A fundamentally superior "universal" cephalosporin for all bacterial infections does not exist.