Carbenicillin therapy of infections due to pseudomonas in children

Bacteriologic and clinical cure with carbenicillin was obtained in the majority of 17 patients with serious, life-threatening, or chronic infections due to Pseudomonas that had been resistant to other therapy. Four episodes of septicemia and 1 case of abscesses due to Pseudomonas were cured in children with leukemia. Three patients with chronic mastoiditis were cured by a combination of therapy with carbenicillin and mastoidectomy. Bacteriologic response was observed in 2 other patients in whom mastoidectomy was deferred, but relapse or reinfection ensued. Chronic infec­tion of the urinary tract due to Pseudomonas was eliminated in 2 patients; a third patient with neu­rogenic bladder and ileal pouch responded to 2 courses of carbenicillin but relapsed on both occa­sions when the drug was withdrawn. Carbenicillin cured infections with Pseudomonas in a premature infant with suppurative arthritis of the hip, in a neonatal infant with pneumonia complicating tet­anus, and in a child with peritonitis. No bacterio­logic response to therapy occurred in a child with osteomyelitis or in 2 children with cystic fibrosis.No serious toxic effects were encountered. Se­rum and urine inhibition titers showed reasonably good correlation with the concentrations of anti­biotic in these fluids. This simple test might beuseful as a rough guide to adequate dosage in places in which laboratory facilities for determi­nation of antibiotic concentrations are not avail­able.