The activity of cephalosporins on beta-lactamase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

The antibacterial activity of cephaloridine, cephalothin, cephalexin, cephradine, cefazolin, cefamandole, cefuroxime and cefoxitin was determined for six beta-lactamase-producing gonococci isolated in Great Britain and the USA. Cefuroxime was most active against small and large inocula, then cefoxitin, while cephaloridine was least active. Cefamandole was more active than cefazolin and cephalothin, but only on small inocula, and these three antibiotics, with the slightly inferior cephalexin and cephradine, all had moderate activity against large inocula. The inoculum effect (or lack of it) with cephaloridine, cefamandole, cefoxitin, and possibly cefazolin and cephalothin, may be explicable in terms of the level of their susceptibility to enzymic degradation, but this appears not to be true of the inoculum effect with cefuroxime, cephalexin and cephradine. The enzymes from the various strains had closely similar isoelectric points, apparently the same as that for TEM I from E. coli.