Short-course cipro for pyelonephritis: unapproved regimen shows promise.(News)

CHICAGO -- Seven days of oral ciprofloxacin is a highly effective and well-tolerated treatment for community-acquired acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis, Dr. David Elkharrat reported at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

The advantages of this unapproved regimen are its simplicity and brevity, compared with conventional therapies that typically call for at least 14 days of antimicrobial treatment, often with more than one agent, said Dr. Elkharrat, chief of the emergency department at Lariboisiere University Hospital in Paris.

He reported on a prospective, uncontrolled study in which 171 women who presented to 35 French emergency departments with a presumptive diagnosis of acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis were treated with 500 nag oral ciprofloxacin twice daily for 1 week.

The presumptive diagnosis was based on the presence of fever, flank pain or costovertebral tenderness upon palpation, and a positive urine dipstick test.

The diagnosis was subsequently confirmed in 122 patients in whom abdominal ultrasound was normal and a urophatogen was identified in urine and/or blood cultures; these women constituted the study population.

The primary end point was bacterial eradication at ...