Saturday Conference: a clinician looks at the aminoglycoside antibiotics.

Aminoglycoside antibiotics provide physicians with valuable drugs for coping with serious, often hospital-acquired gram-negative rod infections which are occurring with increasing frequency. Use of these agents may be advantageous and even lifesaving. There are potential hazards associated with their administration. Narrow therapeutic indices coupled with susceptibility to degradation by resistant bacteria should temper our enthusiasm for aminoglycosides.