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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, June 2000, p. 1674-1679, Vol. 44, No. 6
Departments of
Ophthalmology,1
Microbiology,3 and Clinical
Biochemistry,5 Prince of Wales Hospital,
School of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of New South
Wales,2 and Faculty of Pharmacy,
University of Sydney,4 Sydney, New South Wales,
Australia
Received 11 May 1999/Returned for modification 7 November
1999/Accepted 28 January 2000
Ciprofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone antibiotic active against a wide
variety of bacteria, is one of a few antibiotics which enters the human
eye after oral administration. However, little is known about its
pharmacokinetics in the human eye. One or two oral doses of 750 mg of
ciprofloxacin (at a 12-h interval) were administered to 48 patients at
various times prior to ocular surgery. Clotted blood, aqueous, and
vitreous were collected at surgery, and the concentrations of
ciprofloxacin were assayed by high-performance liquid chromatography.
Our data were combined with those of others, and a population
pharmacokinetic analysis was conducted. The concentrations of
ciprofloxacin in both aqueous and vitreous were lower than those in
serum and peaked at a later time. The pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin
in aqueous and vitreous were fitted to a compartmental model in which
the antibiotic was transferred into and out of the two compartments
(aqueous and vitreous) by first-order processes. Population
pharmacokinetic software, P-Pharm, was used to calculate the mean
half-lives of the loss of ciprofloxacin from aqueous and vitreous,
which were 3.5 and 5.3 h, respectively. At steady state, the mean
ratios of then concentrations in aqueous and vitreous to the
concentrations in serum were 23 and 17%, respectively. After the
administration of one or two doses of 750 mg of ciprofloxacin, the
concentrations in both aqueous and vitreous in a number of patients
were lower than the MICs at which 90% of isolates are inhibited (0.5 mg/liter) for common intraocular bacterial pathogens. Simulations of
concentrations in the eye after the administration of higher doses
(1,500 mg of ciprofloxacin as a single dose, two doses of 750 mg 2 h apart, and 750 mg every 6 h) indicated that in approximately
20% of patients the concentrations would still be below 0.5 mg/liter.
Although oral ciprofloxacin may be a beneficial adjunctive therapy, the
use of oral ciprofloxacin alone may not be adequate for perioperative
prophylaxis or for treatment of bacterial endophthalmitis.
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Pharmacokinetics of Ciprofloxacin in the Human Eye:
a Clinical Study and Population Pharmacokinetic Analysis
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: 592 Stirling
Highway, Mosman Park, WA, 6012, Australia. Phone: 64 8 9385 6665. Fax: 64 8 9385 6669. E-mail: n-morlet{at}q-net.net.au.
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