Therapy of Bacillary Dysentery with “Kanaphenicol”, Combination of Kanamycin and Chloramphenicol

Abstract

Combined use of Kanamycin (KM) and chloramphenicol (CP) in equal dosis was applied to 31 cases of bacillary dysentery, of which 15 were resistant against commonly used broad spectrum antibotics, in order to investigate its clinical effects, development of antibiotic resistance and reappearance of bacilli in the stool in comparison with the separate use of KM and CP. Five hundred mg Kanaphenicol (KP) was given to adults every 6 hours for 4 days, the same in the alone use of KM and CP.
In in vitro use of KP, no significant synergistic effects were observed against CP-resistant and CP-sensitive strains except some additive ones.
KP was clinically effective in 86.7% of antibiotic-resistant cases, inducing subsidence of fever, decrease in number of stools, removal of tenesmus, disappearance of bacilli and recovery of stool nature, KM used alone being effective only in 56%. The rate of reappearance of bacilli was far less in KP as compared with KM. Against antibiotic-sensitive cases, however, KP was as effective as KM, i. e. in over 90%. Reappearance of resistant strains was seldom observed in KP-treated cases, whereas 3 out of 32 cases treated with KM acquired readily resistance. No side effects were found following KP treatment, except slight stomac ache and soft stools in a small number of cases.
It was revealed that combined use of KM and CP demonstrated better clinical effects against bacillary dysentery, particularly against antibiotic resistant cases, as was expected from in vitro experiments, though some problems such as reappearance of bacilli require fur-ther investigation.