A Double-blind, Multicenter, Comparative Study of the Safety and Efficacy of Cefixime Versus Amoxicillin in the Treatment of Acute Urinary Tract Infections in Adult Patients

In this 31-site multicenter trial, 565 adult patients with urinary tract infections were randomly assigned to receive either a 10-day course of cefixime 400 mg once daily (n = 279) or amoxicillin 250 mg three times daily (n = 286). Although all patients were included in the safety analysis, only 93 (33 percent) cefixime-treated and 99 (35 percent) amoxicillin-treated patients were fully evaluable for the efficacy analysis. One week after therapy, the evaluable patients treated with cefixime demonstrated a 90 percent clinical cure rate and a 92 percent eradication rate of the baseline pathogen. This compared with an 83 percent clinical cure rate and an 84 percent bacterial eradication rate in the amoxicillin-treated group. The most frequently isolated pathogen was Escherichia coli (80 percent) followed by Proteus mirabilis (10 percent). One hundred thirty-seven (49 percent) of the 279 cefixime-treated and 126 (44 percent) of the 286 amoxicillin-treated patients reported at least one adverse experience during the study. Adverse reactions associated with cefixime were similar to those reported for other beta-lactam antibiotics. The most frequent adverse experiences reported by cefixime-treated patients were diarrhea (15 percent) and stool changes (12 percent). Headaches (11 percent) and diarrhea (9 percent) were the most frequently reported adverse reactions by the amoxicillin-treated patients. Eleven cefixime-treated patients (3.9 percent) and 10 amoxicillin-treated patients (3.5 percent) discontinued therapy because of adverse experiences. Results of this study demonstrate that a once-daily regimen of cefixime is as safe and effective as a three-times-daily regimen of amoxicillin in the treatment of acute urinary tract infections. Although the incidence of bowel changes was somewhat higher in the cefixime treatment group, these events usually resolved when therapy was discontinued.