Gentamicin Sulfate: The Drug
Gentamicin sulfate is an effective pediatric antibiotic drug. It is used to reduce the development harmful bacteria in the infected body. Gentamicin injection and other antibiotic drugs should only be used only in the case when occurrence of bacteria is proven or strongly suspected, in order to reduce the large blood clots during period formation of drug resisting bacteria and maintain the effectiveness of gentamicin injection. It can be administered in the form of gentamicin sulfate creams, solutions and injections fulfilling its purpose in various areas of the body and disease fighting. It is chemically a water soluble antibiotic belonging to amino glycoside group, derived from Micromonospora purpurea which is an actinomycete. In injections it is administrated as purely a water solution of 10 mg of the compound, while in the form of gentamicin sulfate cream it has other elements as preservatives.
In the form of an injection the drug is injected in the intramuscular area and the highest concentration in the serum usually come between 30 to 60 minutes and levels are measurable for 6 to 8 hours. Like other amino glycosides, gentamicin has a hazard to accumulate in the serum and tissues of the patient under observation with high or regular dosages. It is more common for people with impaired renal function and in those cases the dosage has to be adjusted. Understanding its functionality, in vitro tests have established that gentamicin is a bactericidal antibiotic which acts by stopping standard protein synthesis in the susceptible microscopic bacteria. It is effective on a wide variety of pathogenic bacteria namely Escherichia coli, , indole positive & indole negative bacteria, Proteus species, Citrobacter species, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, species of the Klebsiella-Enterobacter-Serratia group and staphylococcus species. Gentamicin is also effective against species of Salmonella and Shigella in vitro. However, some bacteria species such as streptococcus pneumoniae, all anaerobic bacteria and clostridium species are resistant to this drug. In that case usually a combination of two or more antibiotics is used to cover the large variety of bacteria.
As mentioned before, the usage of gentamicin sulfate antibiotic is necessary after the surety that the infection is the result of the invaded bacteria. In the case of absence of bacteria the gentamicin injection can hardly provide any benefit and may increase toxicity in the body. These toxic effects can be neuromuscular blockade, respiratory paralysis and nephrotoxicity. Studies have shown that this drug can be used against serious bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal tract, central nervous system (meningitis), respiratory tract, urinary tract, skin, bone and soft tissue (including burns). To be safe, specimens of the bacterial infection should be acquired and identified to determine their susceptibility to gentamicin, before administration.
As a general rule, when penicillin or other less potentially toxic drugs are considered less advisable and the culture and susceptibility tests indicate gentamicin's use, then only it should be considered. This precaution is due to gentamicin's potential of nephrotoxicity. In the case of over dosage hemodialysis is recommended to quickly remove the increased amount of the drug from the body. In the case of hypersensitivity and allergic reaction the use of this drug is strictly unadvisable. Also it can cause fetal harm and thus is not good for pregnant women.