Indications & Dosage

Indications:

Ciprofloxacin (Aecipro) is used in the treatment of infections including anthrax, biliary-tract infections, infected bites and stings, bone and joint infections, cat scratch disease, chancroid, exacerbations of cystic fibrosis, ear, nose, and throat infections (including otitis externa, otitis media, and sinusitis), HACEK endocarditis, gastro enteritis (including traveller’s diarrhoea and campylobacter enteritis, cholera, salmonella enteritis, shigellosis, and yersinia enteritis), gonorrhoea, granuloma inguinale, infections in immuno-compromised patients (neutropenia), legionnaires’ disease, pelvic inflammatory disease, peritonitis, plague, lower respiratory-tract infections (including pseudomonal infections in cystic fibrosis, but excluding infections due to Streptococcus pneumoniae such as pneumococcal pneumonia), rickettsial infections (including Q fever, spotted fevers, and typhus), septicaemia, skin infections (including soft-tissue infections), typhoid and paratyphoid fever, and urinary-tract infections including chronic bacterial prostatitis. Ciprofloxacin (Acipro) is used for meningococcal meningitis prophylaxis. It is also used for surgical infection prophylaxis and in the treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial infections and tuberculosis.

Dosage and Administration

The usual adult intravenous dose is 200 to 400 mg twice daily, given over 30 to 60 minutes as a solution containing the equivalent of 1 to 2 mg/mL. Women with acute uncomplicated cystitis may be given 100 mg twice daily by intravenous infusion. A 28-days course of treatment with intravenous dose of 400 mg twice daily should be given for chronic bacterial prostatitis. Bone and joint infection should be treated with intravenous dose of 400 mg two or three times daily for 4 to 6 weeks. Intravenous infusions of 400 mg three times daily have also been recommended in severe or complicated lower respiratory tract or skin infection, nosocomial pneumonia, and with piperacillin for empirical treatment of febrile nuetropenic patients. For treatment and postexposure prophylaxis of inhalation anthrax, a 60-days course of treatment with initial intravenous doses of 400 mg twice daily followed by oral doses of 500 mg twice daily recommended; although unlicensed, the same regimen is recommended by UK and US public health agencies for the treatment of gastrointestinal anthrax. Doses should be reduced in patients with severe renal impairment (see below). Single intravenous doses of 100 mg are used for the treatment of gonnorhoea, depending upon patterns of resistance.

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