Therapeutic Efficacy of Oral Ofloxacin in Acute Diarrhea and Dysentery.

The efficacy of 200mg oral ofloxacin given twice daily for 3 days was evaluated in 98 hospitalized cases with acute diarrhea or dysentery. Sixty cases were female, most of whom were laborers.Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Shigella flexneri, Shigella boydii, Shigella sonnei, Aeromonas hydrophila, Aeromonas spp., and Plesiomonas shigelloides were isolated from fecal samples in 36 of 86 cases (42%) with diarrhea and 5 of 12 cases (46%) with dysentery.E. coli agglutinated with various E. coli polyvalent antisera were found in another 25 cases (26%). With the exception of E. coli, most of the clinical isolates were highly susceptible to ofloxacin and norfloxacin with minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC90) of 0.047-0.38 and 0.016-0.25mg/L, respectively. A total cure was achieved in 96.5% of cases with diarrhea and in 100% of cases with dysentery. There was a delayed response in two cases and only one case clinically failed to respond.V. cholerae was repeatedly isolated on day 3 in another case who had recovered on day 2, and 1 case developed gangrenous cholecystitis and ischemic enteropathy after an initial response to ofloxacin.