Fleroxacin: a review of its chemistry, microbiology, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, clinical efficacy and safety.

Within the past decade several new fluoroquinolones (norfloxacin, enoxacin, ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, pefloxacin, temafloxacin and lomefloxacin) have been introduced into therapy. All these agents share a broad spectrum of activity against a variety of pathogens which are covered with low concentrations of the compounds mentioned. Moreover, the quinolones share the advantage that they are so far not affected by transposon-mediated resistance, i.e. by enzymatic destruction. Recently, transport systems have been described causing therapeutically relevant resistance. With respect to Gram-positive bacteria, a membrane-associated active efflux pump of hydrophilic quinolones was found in a clinical isolate of Staphylococcus aureus [1]. Ishii et al. described a highly effective efflux sys-