Systemic quinolone antibiotics in children: a review of the use and safety

Abstract

Historically, healthcare providers have reluctantly used systemic quinolone antibiotics to treat infections in children when they have been used at all. Concerns regarding the oral or parenteral use of quinolones in children rose from research observations demonstrating cartilage and joint toxicity in juvenile animal models following the administration of this class of antibiotics to immature animals. A voluntary moratorium on the use of quinolone and fluoroquinolone antibiotics in children resulted in restricting their use to treat in infections in specific settings such as immunocompromised states due to chemotherapy, pseudomonas infections in cystic fibrosis patients, complicated urinary tract infections, and quinolone sensitive infectious disease where parenteral antibiotic administration is not available and quinolones were the only effective therapy. This article aims to review retrospective and prospective safety and efficacy data to provide a comprehensive summary of the systemic use of this class of antibiotics in children.

Keywords::

• children
• fluoroquinolone antibiotic
• urinary tract infection (UTI)