[Antibacterial activity of rokitamycin against fresh clinical isolates].

We obtained bacterial strains which were clinically isolated and identified from outpatients with various infections in medical institutions throughout Japan. Possible antibacterial activities of rokitamycin (RKM) were examined against these isolates. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined through a comparative study with reference drugs. The results of the study are summarized as follows. 1. Resistance patterns of 400 isolates which were highly resistant to macrolides (MLs) with MIC values > 100 micrograms/ml were classified into 55 patterns. Staphylococcus spp. showed cross resistance to 14-membered ring MLs with 100% cross resistance observed between erythromycin (EM) and clarithromycin (CAM), and 85.2% between EM and oleandomycin (OL). Fewer isolates showed strong resistance to 16-membered ring MLs than to 14-membered ring MLs. Cross resistances observed among the Staphylococcus isolates were 100% between acetylmidecamycin (MDM-AC) and kitasamycin (leucomycin (LM)), 93.9% between MDM-AC and josamycin (JM), and 53.3% between MDM-AC and RKM. Streptococcus spp. and Peptococcus spp. showed very similar resistance patterns to both 14- and 16-membered ring MLs, but resistance patterns to RKM were quite different. Most of anaerobic streptococci and Bacteroides fragilis group had similar resistance patterns to 14- and 16-membered ring MLs, but in some cases a pattern similar to that of Staphylococcus spp. was observed. 2. When ML-resistant bacteria isolated during 1975 to 1980 were compared to those isolated in 1986 and 1989, it was observed that resistance of Staphylococcus aureus remained almost unchanged, that of Streptococcus pyogenes was lower in the later years than during 1975 to 1980, but that of Streptococcus pneumoniae increased. 3. Most of ML-resistances of the resistant isolates were inducible, but extents of induction varied depending on drugs tested. Strong inductions were observed when 14-membered ring MLs were used, but inductions were minimal with 16-membered ring MLs. RKM appeared to induce resistance to the least extent. From these results, it appears that the RKM is quite useful clinically even in the 1990s.