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| |  DG DISPATCH - ICAAC: Gemifloxacin Reduces Chronic Bronchitis Exacerbations And Hospitalization By Cameron Johnston Special to DG News
TORONTO, ON -- September 21, 2000 -- The antibiotic gemifloxacin mesylate is more effective and results in fewer hospital stays than clarithromycin for patients with chronic bronchitis, according to results from a health economics study. The results of the study were presented at the Interscience Congress on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) meeting, in Toronto, Canada. Canadian researchers conducted the study at McMaster University, in Hamilton, regarded as the home of medical epidemiology in North America. McMaster has the continent’s most sophisticated department for monitoring health outcomes and health economics. The study involved 214 patients who were treated with 320 mg of gemifloxacin once daily for five days, and compared them to 224 patients who were treated with 500 mg of clarithromycin twice daily for seven days. Subjects in both groups had similar histories of smoking, steroid use and acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis. For all patients with documented bacterial infection at study entry, the success rate with gemifloxacin (Factive, SmithKline Beecham) was significantly better at week 5 (81.8 percent) than with clarithromycin (62 percent). Gemifloxacin showed eradication of the bacteria as early as day 1, while some patients in the clarithromycin arm continued to harbor pathogens up to day 7. The proportion of patients whose initial exacerbations resolved and who experienced no further recurrences by week 26 was 71 percent (120 out of 169 patients) in the gemifloxacin arm compared with 58 percent (100 out of 171 patients in the clarithromycin arm. Thirty percent fewer patients in the gemifloxacin group than in the the clarithromycin group demonstrated recurrence of their exacerbations requiring further antibiotic treatment, said Lionel Mandell, MD, professor of medicine at McMaster University. The number of patients who were hospitalized for acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis following the start of therapy was 2.3 percent in the gemifloxacin group compared with 6.3 percent in the clarithromycin group. "This study presents ground-breaking data confirming that the choice of antibiotic can have an impact on long-term health outcomes and overall patient success rates," Dr. Mandell said. "Patients enrolled here not only had less frequent exacerbations of their bronchitis with gemifloxacin treatment, but also exhibited reduced hospitalization rates compared to another commonly-used antibiotic," he added.
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