Susceptibility of enterococci. I. Inhibitory and bactericidal activity of several chemoantibiotics against Streptococcus faecalis and Streptococcus faecium.

The authors present a microbiological study of 100 strains of Enterococcus (70 strains of Streptococcus faecalis and 30 strains of Streptococcus faecium) tested for susceptibility to the following antibiotics, amoxicillin, ampicillin + flucloxacillin, piperacillin, rifampicin, vancomycin, netilmicin, ofloxacin, and norfloxacin. The assessment of minimum inhibitory and minimum bactericidal concentrations of these substances indicates that all have good inhibitory activity except netilmicin, which is active at higher concentrations; with rifampicin and vancomycin showing very poor bactericidal activity. The bactericidal activity of penicillins was hard to assess because of tolerance and paradoxical effect phenomena. The quinolones showed good inhibitory and bactericidal activity.