Pharmacology, Safety, and efficacy of cefamandole in childhood infections.

We used cefamandole in the initial treatment of 34 children (10 months to 15 years of age) with suspected bone, joint, or soft tissue infections. The minimal inhibitory concentration of organisms encountered ranged between 0.015 and 2 microgram/ml. At 1 h after intravenous infusion of 25 mg/kg, the mean serum level of cefamandole was 26.2 microgram/ml (range, 8.9 to 47.5 microgram/ml), and at 3 h the level was 1.8 microgram/ml (range, 0.6 to 4.4 microgram/ml), which is above the minimal inhibitory concentration for most of the organisms encountered. However, when the drug was given intravenously every 6 h, the mean level after a 37-mg/kg dose was 0.9 microgram/ml (range, less than 0.5 to 1.9 microgram/ml) at 4 h and, by extrapolation, would have fallen below 0.1 microgram/ml at 6 h. The mean serum half-life was 34 min. Cefamandole appeared to diffuse well into synovial fluid, with joint fluid levels between 5 and 40 microgram/ml. The drug was tolerated well. Cefamandole appears to be a reasonable alternative in the initial treatment of skeletal infections in children, but need to be administered every 4 h to maintain suprainhibitory serum levels between doses.