Risk from fluoroquinolones

While antibiotics are often used to help patients increase resistance to fight disease development or infection from wounds, a new finding by Canadian scientists has shown that The use of some specialized antibiotics in the group of drugs called fluoroquinolones may increase the risk of kidney failure, especially when used in combination with some other medications.

A reporter in Ottawa reported the results of a study by a group of Canadian and US medical experts who announced on June 3 that some antibiotics are in a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones including ciprofloxacin, gatifloxacin, gemifloxacin, Levofloxacin, moxifloxacin and norfloxacin, can make users twice as likely to develop kidney-related diseases than those who do not use these drugs, especially when they are used in combination. with some other medications.

The team includes experts from the US Food and Drug Administration; University of Florida, University of Washington (USA); The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the McGill University Medical Center in Montreal, said their study was only done with people taking oral medications, not including those receiving fluoroquinolones through intravenous injection. in the hospital.

The results showed that on average, in 1,529 people using the above antibiotics there was one person with kidney failure and for patients using a drug called ACE inhibitors (a drug used To reduce hypertension, the use of fluoroquinolones will increase the risk of kidney damage by 4.5 times compared with those who do not use it.

Although not involved in this study, Dr. David Juurlink, an expert on pharmaceutical safety at the Center for Physical Science Research in Toronto, thinks that this is one of the most successful and successful studies. high conviction.

According to him, if only looking at the rate of 1 / 1,500 patients with kidney failure after using these antibiotics may not see the risks, but if there are 1.5 million users then at that time there will be 1,000 more patients with kidney failure. Therefore, these drugs need to be used according to stricter regulations.

In some cases, if the benefit of the drug is greater than the risk, the designation of the patient may be considered. According to him, doctors need to understand the properties and side effects of these antibiotics and should only use them when absolutely necessary.