Endotracheal aminoglycosides in gram negative pneumonia. A preliminary report.

Five postoperative patients with respiratory failure and gram negative pneumonia unresponsive to systemic antimicrobials were treated with endotracheally instilled aminoglycosides. Sputum cultures in four patients grew Pseudomonas aeruginosa and, in the fifth, Enterobacter cloacae. The five patients had been treated systemically for an average of 13 days (range 9 to 19 days) without improvement prior to endotracheal antibiotic administration. The gram negative organisms disappeared from the sputum cultures in all patients within an average of 4 days (range 2 to 8 days) following initiation of endotracheal antibiotics. All five patients had continued clinical improvement manifest by improved chest radiographs, improved oxygenation, and absence of the offending organisms from sputum cultures. None of the patients died from their gram negative pneumonia. This success coupled with data from other investigators suggests that endotracheal antibiotics should be considered in life-threatening gram negative pneumonias that are unresponsive to conventional systemic antimicrobials.