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| |  DG DISPATCH - ACCP: Chronic Bronchitis Symptom Relief Faster With Moxifloxacin Than Azithromycin By Ed Susman Special to DG News
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- October 26, 2000 -- In a "real world" study comparing two treatments of exacerbations of chronic bronchitis, doctors said that patients taking the new fluoroquinolone moxifloxacin reported relief of symptoms sooner than those patients taking azithromycin. "Forty percent of patients on moxifloxacin reported they were feeling better within three days of onset of the acute bronchitis attack," said Dr. Siegfried Kreis, an internal medicine specialist at the Providence Clinic, Waco, Texas. "That compared with just 25 percent of patients taking azithromycin. The differences were highly statistically significant, to the p=0.012 level." In the poster presentation at the American College of Chest Physicians meeting, Dr. Kreis set out to determine if moxifloxacin therapy could deliver similar cure rates as azithromycin in an intent-to-treat patient population that eventually included about 400 patients. Dr. Kreis said that both drugs - the once-a-day moxifloxacin and the twice-a-day azithromycin delivered for five days - had better than 80 percent cures rates within two weeks, and about 80 percent remained cured of the bronchitis at the time of the next visit. Dr. Kreis said he found a strong trend as well and that the patients who felt better were ready to return to normal activities such as working faster. About 35 percent said they were ready to return to these activities after three days on moxifloxacin, compared with about 25 percent on azithromycin. However, the difference did not reach statistical significance. "This result doesn’t surprise me," said Dr. Carlos Luna, MD, professor of internal medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. "The macrolides-including azithromycin-do not seem to be as good at treating these diseases. We are very happy with moxifloxacin." Dr. Kreis said that some people might be hesitant to start patients on a new medication, but he said the expense of the drug is offset by savings in repeat office visits, the requirement to prescribe further medications if the first one is "not working", the loss of wages because the patient didn’t feel well enough to work and costs to caregivers. He also said concern about antibiotic resistance issues have not developed because resistance to the drug requires the organism to develop two different mutations to escape the killing effects of the drug.
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