The recent increases in the prevalance of penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae becomes a point at issue clinically. We carried out a clinical study in 40 cases in the pediatrics department, as faropenem (FRPM) was proved to have an excellent antimicrobial activity against penicillinresistant Streptococcus pneumoniae.
The study was planned to investigate in detail the movement of stools that had been a problem in a clinical development studies out before. In this study, an observation of the daily movement of stools was one of the principal evaluation items, hence the patients were divided into two groups. One group (S-group) were administered FRPM only, the other group (E-group) were administered FRPM in combination with a medicine for intestinal disorders (Enteronon-R).
An observed frequencies of any loose bowel movements were 94.7% in S-group, and 63.2% in E-group, hence the study suggested that the combination drug was effective.
The patients observed higher frequencies of development of the movement of stools, all of them were recovered from in the course of administration or within 4 days after administration, however whether or not being treated symptomatic therapy.
Clinical efficacy rates of FRPM on mainly respiratory infections were 94.6%.
In this study, 4 strains (patients) of penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae were isolated. Against penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, FRPM demonstrated more potent antibacterial activity than the oral penicillins and cephems tested here except cefditoren. Clinical efficacies was deemed effective in all of the 4 cases, and bacteriologically, 3 organisms were eradicated.
As for side effects including diarrhea and loose stool, no serious side effects were observed.
Based on the above results, FRPM is effective against most infections in the pediatric field which Streptococcus pneumoniae are isolated at high frequencies highly, and is considered to cases in be useful an attention will have to be paid to stool movement, however.

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We investigated clinical and bacteriological effects of cefetamet pivoxil (CEMT-PI) in community-acquired respiratory tract infections and obtained the following findings. That method was approximately equal to that of investigation in 1994.
1. Of the 431 respiratory tract infection cases that were treated with CEMT-PI according to a same protocol at a total of 41 institutions in Tokyo, Kanagawa-ken, Saitama-ken and Chiba-ken from January to the beginning of March 1996. Outpatients accounted for 98.1% of the subjects. Regarding genders to patients, slightly more females (52.6%) than males were included. Diagnoses given to these patients included pharyngo-laryngitis (53.5%), tonsillitis (20.4%) and acute bronchitis (19.1%).
2. We investigated clinical efficacy rates (the ratio of those excellent + good) classified by diseases. The improvement rates of pharyngo-laryngitis, tonsillitis and acute bronchitis were more than 85.0%. Other cases were small in number. That of chronic bronchitis-acute increasing change for the worse was 66.7%, pneumonia was 50.0% and bronchiectasis infection was 16.7%. It was not studied that clinical efficacy rates among those who were treated with 1 CEMT-PI tablet twice and among those who were given 2 tablets twice were significant level.
3. For the bacteriological study, a written material describing the method of collecting specimens, storage and transport in detail was distributed to the above mentioned institutions. The isolation and identification of suspected causative bacteria, determination of minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and investigation of β-lactamase production were conducted all together at section of studies, Tokyo Clinical Research Center. Suspected causative bacteria were detected from 274 (63.6%) cases. They included 88 strains of Haemophilus influenzae, 47 strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae, 42 strains of Streptococcus pyogenes, 20 strains of Moraxella subgenus Branhamella catarrhalis and 17 strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae. Suspected causative bacteria classified by diseases were S. pyogenes (tonsillitis), S. pneumoniae (acute bronchitis and secondary infection of chronic respiratory infection) and H. influenzae (pharyngo-laryngitis), and the detection frequency of those was high. The clinical efficacies (the ratio of improvement) classified by suspected causative bacteria were 84.4% against organism that was indicating CEMT and were 69.2% against organism that was not indicating CEMT.

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The incidence of pathogenic bacteria in respiratory tract infections in 1994 and 1995 was investigated using quantitative cultures of sputa from patients with the infections in our department. Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Moraxella catarrhalis were isolated at high rates (70.5% in 1994 and 73.8% in 1995) from the specimens of out-patients, and the incident rates were similar to the past data. The antimicrobial susceptibilities of these three pathogens were examined with the agar dilution method. The incidence of penicillin (Pc) resistant S. pneumoniae against which MIC of Pc-G was higher than 0.125μg/ml was markedly increased from 24% in 1994 to 34.9% in 1995. Most of the Pc resistant isolates were also resistant to other antibiotics including erythromycin, minocycline and tosufloxacin. Serotype of strains against which MIC of Pc-G was higher than 1.0μg/ml was 19. The ratios of β-lactamase-producing strains among H. influenzae isolated in 1994 and 1995 were 20 and 15.8%, respectively, which were slightly higher than those in the past. One quinolone resistant strain was isolated in this study. Although the ratio of β-lactamase-producing strains among M. catarrhalis was as high (96.7%) as in the past, no increased resistance against the drugs examined was observed.

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In order to evaluate antimicrobial activities of clarithromycin (CAM), minimum inhibitory oncentrations (MICs) of CAM and control drugs were determined against clinical isolates that were obtained from outpatients in 1994 and 1996.
The results are summarized as follows;
1. It was not showed that CAM-resistant strains were increasing among Staphylococcus spp., β-streptococci, Moraxella subgenus Branhamella catarrhalis, Haemophilus influenzae, Bordetella pertussis, Campylobacter jejuni subsp. jejuni, Chlamydia trachomatis
and Mycoplasma pneumoniae. It appeared that resistances to CAM and macrolides (MLs) were increasing among Streptococcus pneumoniae and Peptostreptococcus spp.
2. The drug susceptibility patterns to MLs were similar and detection frequencies of induced resistant strains that were resistant to only 14-membered ring MLs including CAM and constitutive resistant strains that were resistant to 14 and 16-membered ring MLs were high among Streptococcus pneumoniae and Peptostreptococcus spp. It appears that MLs-resistance systems are linked to each other, and that this was a cause of increasing MLs-resistance among these bacterial species.
3. Notwithstanding of antibiotic resistance problems, CAM is still useful since it maintains strong antimicrobial activities against M (B.) catarrhalis, B. pertussis, C. jejuni subsp. jejuni, C. trachomatis and M. pneumoniae, and it controls arginate producing abilities of mucoide strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

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We evaluated a clinical strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Mu50, for vancomycin susceptibility. Mu50 was isolated from a patient with infection of a surgical incision site which resisted vancomycin therapy. Mu50 showed a decrease in susceptibility to vancomycin, but this strain did not carry vanA or vanB or vanC genes as judged from PCR amplification. MICs of vancomycin against Mu50 and vancomycin-susceptible S. aureus FDA209P, S. aureus ATCC-29213, and MRSA H-1 were 8, 1, 1, and 1,μg/ml, respectively by agar dilution and macro-broth dilution methods according to NCCLS. MIC values with agar dilution method using MHA+20% horse serum, HIA, and BHIA agreed with the MIC values with micro- and macro-broth dilution method. Population analysis revealed that vancomycin concentration required for inhibition of ca. 10⁷ cells of Mu50, S. aureus FDA209P, S. aureus ATCC29213, and MRSA H-1 were 36, 2, 2, and 2μg/ml, respectively. These results showed that the activity of vancomycin against Mu50 was at least 8-fold decreased compared to that against S. aureus FDA209P, S. aureus ATCC29213, and MRSA H-1.

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The emergence of Candida albicans resistance to azole antifungal agents have been reported in the U.S. and Europe. We examined the in vitro antifungal activities of fluconazole against clinical isolates collected by seven investigators in three years to examine if a tendency existed toward the development of azole-resistance among fungal isolates in Japan. The following results were obtained:
1. Sensitivities to fluconazole (FLCZ) were determined for yeast-like fungi, including 113 strains isolated in 1993, 149 strains isolated in 1994 and 205 strains isolated in 1995. No significant differences in sensitivities in the three years were detected.
2. Minimum inhibitory concentrations of FLCZ were 0.1-0.78 μg/ml for C. albicans and 3.13-25μg/ml for C. glabrata. Strains with 25 μg/ml of FLCZ's MIC were detected; two strains of C. krusei and one strain each of C. krusei, Trichospron beigelii and Hansenula anomala. No strains with higher than 50 μg/ml MIC of FLCZ were detected.
3.In vitro activities of FLCZ were compared between clinical strains isolated between 1993 and 1995 and clinical strains isolated before the marketing of FLCZ (up to December 1987) or clinical yeasts isolated between 1991 and 1992. No significant differences were observed, suggesting that no tendency existed toward azole resistance among fungal strains examined.

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