Delineation of the relative antibacterial activity of cefamandole and cefamandole nafate.

By conventional laboratory evaluation procedures, the in vitro antibacterial activities of cefamandole and its O-formyl ester, cefamandole nafate, appear virtually identical. When the activities of these two compounds were examined for their ability to lyse log-phase cultures of susceptible bacteria, however, cefamandole was found to be about 10 times more active than cefamandole nafate. Cefamandole nafate was shown to be rapidly converted to cefamandole in bacteriological media, with a half-life of less than 1 h at a pH of 7.0 or above. At pH 6.0, in log-phase inhibition experiments, however, cefamandole nafate is more stable, allowing delineation of the activity between cefamandole and cefamandole nafate. The efficacy of cefamandole was identical to that of cefamandole nafate in treating experimental animal infections, indicating that rapid conversion of cefamandole nafate to cefamandole occurs in vivo.