Oral Cephalosporins in Perspective

Abstract

The isolation of the basic cephalosporin nucleus has enabled pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce a range of orally active agents with diverse antimicrobial, pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties. These agents have been arbitrarily classified into first, second or third ‘generations’ on the basis of differences in their spectra of antimicrobial activity (usually versus Gram-negative organisms) rather than the time of their introduction.