Bacteriological, clinical, and pharmacological investigations with tobramycin in patients with serious urinary tract infection.

In studies of tobramycin an excellent effect was noted against many strains of bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae and of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus derived from clinical sources. When the susceptibility of the strains to tobramycin was compared with susceptibility to other aminoglycoside antibiotics, tobramycin was clearly the most effective antibiotic of this group. Therapy of chronic urinary tract infection with tobramycin resulted in good clinical effects with no (or only slight) adverse reactions. When the parameters of recovery in patients treated with tobramycin were compared with those in other patients who had the same diseases but were treated with gentamicin, tobramycin yielded clinical results that were as good as (and occasionally better than) those produced by gentamicin. Studies of the pharmacokinetics of tobramycin showed a high rate of absorption from the muscles, a high rate of renal excretion, and effective therapeutic concentrations (higher than the minimal inhibitory concentration for the infecting strains) in renal tissue homogenates.