Early Bactericidal Activity of Moxifloxacin in Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis: a Prospective, Randomized Study

Moxifloxacin is the most active fluoroquinolone against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vitro. However, data about the efficacy in patients are not available. We enrolled 17 patients with tuberculosis in a prospective, randomized study. After 5 days of monotherapy with either moxifloxacin or isoniazid, we detected significant decreases in mean CFU per milliliter in sputum in both groups. The calculated early bactericidal activities for isoniazid and moxifloxacin were 0.209 and 0.273 log10 CFU per ml of sputum per day, respectively. According to the data from our study, moxifloxacin exhibits an early bactericidal activity that is comparable to that of isoniazid. Tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest diseases in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 8 million new cases of tuberculosis occur each year, and approximately 3 million people die from the disease. The emerging resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to standard antituberculous drugs raises the need for the devel-opment of new agents. Fluoroquinolones are of particular in