Narrow-spectrum antibiotic

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A narrow-spectrum antibiotic is an antibiotic that is only able to kill or inhibit limited species of bacteria. [1] Examples of narrow-spectrum antibiotics include fidaxomicin and sarecycline.

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Advantages

Disadvantages

Often, the exact species of bacteria causing the illness is unknown, in which case narrow-spectrum antibiotics can't be used, and broad-spectrum antibiotics are used instead. To know the exact species of bacteria causing the illness, clinical specimens need to be taken for antimicrobial susceptibility testing in a clinical microbiology laboratory.[ citation needed ]

See also

References

  1. Hopkins SJ (1997). Drugs and Pharmacology for Nurses (12th ed.). Churchill Livingstone. ISBN   978-0-443-05249-1.
  2. Blaser M (August 2011). "Antibiotic overuse: Stop the killing of beneficial bacteria". Nature. 476 (7361): 393–4. Bibcode:2011Natur.476..393B. doi: 10.1038/476393a . PMID   21866137. S2CID   205066874.
  3. Keener AB (9 May 2016). "Narrow-Spectrum Antibiotic Could Spare the Microbiome". The Scientist Magazine®. Archived from the original on 2023-09-26. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
  4. Melander RJ, Zurawski DV, Melander C (2018). "Narrow-Spectrum Antibacterial Agents". MedChemComm. 9 (1): 12–21. doi:10.1039/c7md00528h. PMC   5839511 . PMID   29527285.

Further reading