[Comparison of the antibacterial activity of amikacin (BB-K8) with other aminoglycosides against pathogens recently isolated from clinical materials (author's transl) ].

We determined the antibacterial activity of amikacin against 1,277 strains of pathogenic bacteria isolated from clinical materials during 1974, including beta hemolytic streptococci, pneumococci, enterococci, Staphylococcus aureus, Staph. epidermidis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Citrobacter, Serratia, Proteus morganii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and compared the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of this drug with gentamicin, dibekacin, tobramycin and kanamycin. 1)Antibacterial activity of amikacin against beta hemolytic streptococci, pneumococci and enterococci was as weak as the other four aminoglycosides, but against Staph. aureus, Staph. epidermidis, various groups of Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed amikacin the good antibacterial activity as gentamicin, dibedacin and tobramycin, and also showed the good activity against kanamycin resistant strains. 2) Amikacin has the similar antibacterial spectrum as gentamicin, dibekacin or tobramycin, but its antibacterial activity is generally weakest among these four drugs. 3) On many strains tested the cross resistance is observed between amikacin and one of gentamicin, dibekacin and tobramycin, but several strains of Proteus morganii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa which have rather large MIC against gentamicin, dibekacin or tobramycin showed rather small MIC against amikacin.