Medicus, Vol. 9 No. 2_Antibiotici, 2000.
Review article
New Antimicrobial Drugs
Igor Francetić
Abstract
The unattainable wish for the discovery of an
antimicrobial drug that will fulfull all our requests has resulted
in a large number of them nowadays being used in clinical medicine.
A new antimicrobial drug is still required to be, along with
a better antimicrobial spectrum, more adequate for application
(simpler dosage), to have as less side effects as possible, and
to be in the best possible way distributed within human tissues
and cells. The experience from the last sixty years of antimicrobial
therapy has shown that the father of chemotherapy Paul
Erlich was wrong when he foresaw in 1913, that within five
years the problem of bacterial infections would be solved. He
failed to see the present well-known fact that the man and bacterium
are strongly connected (we share the same purines, the
same aminoacids and similar metabolic pathways), what significantly
complicates antimicrobial treatment. In finding new
antimicrobial drugs we must balance between the effect on bacteria
and the effect on the human body. Thus, in expectation of
a perfect antimicrobial drug, what remains is more careful and
rational prescription of those we have today. In that way we
shall slow down the selection of resistant bacteria, save the
funds for treating infections in out-patient facilities and in hospitals,
and decrease the need for finding new drugs, for which
pharmaceutical industry must spent a lot of money.
Keywords
antimicrobial treatment; bacteria and man; new antibiotics
Hrčak ID:
19203
URI
Publication date:
20.9.2000.
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