Strong efficacy data for S-P's Avelox

US drug major Schering-Plough presented strong efficacy data for its once-daily, broad-spectrum antibiotic Avelox (moxifloxacin HCl) in the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) at the 46th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, held in San Francisco, USA.

A prospective, randomized, open-label, multicenter study comparing the efficacy and safety of Avelox to that of combination therapy (sequential therapy with IV ceftriaxone 2g daily and metronidazole 0.5g, three times daily followed by oral dosing of amoxicillin/clavulanate 625mg, three times daily, for 14 days) in the treatment of cIAI found that S-P's drug was as effective as the combination regimen. Overall clinical cure rates were 80.9% in the moxifloxacin group versus 82.3%. Duration of therapy, length of post-operative hospital stay and mortality rates were comparable for the two treatment groups. Both regimens were well tolerated, the firm noted.

A second analysis, designed to assess the efficacy of moxifloxacin against anaerobic bacteria in cIAI, evaluated pooled data from two large cIAI clinical trials in which the effectiveness of intravenous to oral moxifloxacin was compared to treatment with combination therapies. These showed that monotherapy with moxifloxacin 400mg once daily provided clinical and bacteriological success rates against anaerobic pathogens comparable to combination therapy with either piperacillin/tazobactam or ceftriaxone/metronidazole in patients with cIAI. Overall, the combined cure rates were 80.4% for patients on Avelox and 80.4% for those in the combination therapy arms.