Clinical evaluation of sulbactam/ampicillin in children

Sulbactam/Ampicillin (SBT/ABPC), a combination at a fixed ratio of ABPC and SBT which is an irreversible inhibitor of beta-lactamase in a 2:1 ratio, was clinically evaluated for its efficacy and safety in 24 patients with ages from 5 month-old to 12 years old with bacterial infection. The results obtained are summarized as follows. 1. A pharmacokinetic study following 30 mg/kg SBT/ABPC administration by 30 minutes drip infusion or intravenous bolus injection showed that mean half-lives of SBT and ABPC were 48.9 minutes and 40.2 minutes, respectively, and mean urinary excretion rates of SBT and ABPC in the first 6 hours were 67.1% and 48.3%, respectively. 2. SBT/ABPC was administered to 14 patients with bronchopneumonia, 4 patients with tonsillitis, a patient each with acute upper respiratory infection, with submandibular lymphadenitis, with phlegmon, with enterocolitis, with pyelonephritis and with cystitis at a daily dosage of 88.2-133.3 mg/kg, divided into 3 or 4, by intravenous bolus injection or by 30 minutes drip infusion. Clinical responses of the 24 patients were as follows: excellent: 17 patients, good: 7 patients. The efficacy rate was 100%. 3. Neither clinical adverse reactions nor abnormal laboratory test values, except slight eosinophilia in a patient and an elevation of GOT, GPT in another were observed. 4. MICs of SBT/ABPC against 7 strong beta-lactamase producing strains isolated from some of the patients were as follows. MIC against a strain of Staphylococcus aureus was 3.13 micrograms/ml, MICs against 2 out of 5 strains of Branhamella catarrhalis were 0.10 microgram/ml and those of the remaining 3 strains were 0.20 microgram/ml. MIC against a strain of Haemophilus parainfluenzae was 3.13 micrograms/ml. 5. These data described above show that SBT/ABPC has excellent bactericidal capacity against beta-lactamase producing bacteria as well as beta-lactamase non-producing Gram-positive and negative bacteria and suggest that SBT/ABPC is a very useful antibiotic for pediatric patients.