Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0017536 (giardiasis)
 1,714 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Two cases of serum sickness from furazolidone (Furoxona), prescribed for giardiasis in Latin America, are described. No previous case of serum sickness related to this drug has been reported in the United States. Tartrazine (yellow dye number 5), a component of furazolidone tablets (Furoxona) manufactured in Latin America countries but no longer included in the drug (Furoxone) in the United States is suggested as a possible cause of serum sickness.
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PMID:Serum sickness with furazolidone. 68 41

Acute infectious diarrhoea is a widespread cause of morbidity and mortality. Some of the major diarrhoeal diseases are cholera, typhoid fever, shigellosis (bacillary dysentery), salmonellosis, "travellers' diarrhoea", and giardiasis These diseases can be avoided with proper education, sanitation, and hygiene. However, the majority of these diseases occur most frequently in areas of the world where political and social upheaval, poverty, overcrowding, and a lack of education prevail. Although vaccines are available for some of the diseases, they are not completely effective. Antimicrobial therapy is effective in decreasing the duration and severity of diarrhoea and in reducing the likelihood of relapses, complications, and death. An antimicrobial drug for the treatment of acute infectious diarrhoeal disease must be relatively specific, effective, and safe, and it should not promote the development of resistant bacteria. Furazolidone (Furoxone) has been used for 30 years for the specific and symptomatic treatment of bacterial or protozoal diarrhoea and enteritis caused by susceptible organisms. Its effectiveness has often been shown to be comparable or superior to that of other drugs. In addition, the toxicity of furazolidone is relatively low, and it minimizes the development of resistant organisms. These characteristics should contribute to the continued use of furazolidone as a rational choice in the treatment of acute infectious diarrhoeal diseases that occur worldwide.
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PMID:The use of furoxone: a perspective. 351 12

The role drug resistance plays in the occurrence of chronic and recurrent giardiasis has not been established. Extensive data on the susceptibility to antimicrobial agents of living Giardia spp. trophozoites from human origin are lacking. We have determined with a macrodilution method in semisolid medium the in vitro susceptibility of 25 Giardia lamblia isolates, all obtained by routine cultivation of the duodenal fluid of children to six commonly used antiprotozoal drugs. The results showed tinidazole to be the most active drug (all isolates have MICs of less than or equal to 0.5 micrograms/ml). Metronidazole was equally active on all but one isolate, for which an MIC between 0.5 and 1 micrograms/ml was found. Furazolidone was the most active nonimidazole compound tested. More than 50% of the isolates were very susceptible to paromomycin, pyrimethamine, and chloroquine. Two of the strains presented an MIC for paromomycin higher than 10 micrograms/ml, and six strains needed more than 50 micrograms of pyrimethamine per ml to be inhibited. Decreased susceptibility of several of the isolates to different agents appears to be linked.
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PMID:In vitro susceptibilities of 25 Giardia lamblia isolates of human origin to six commonly used antiprotozoal agents. 407 61

Giardia lamblia has emerged as the most common intestinal parasite in the United States. This article presents a brief review of the clinically important aspects of giardiasis and evaluates the currently used therapeutic agents. Three drugs have been advocated for the treatment of giardiasis; furazolidone (Furoxone), metronidazole (Flagyl), and quinacrine (Atabrine). None of them, however, is ideal. Metronidazole and quinacrine are more effective than furazolidone, but furazolidone has the advantage of a liquid formulation that makes administration to children easier. Quinacrine is much less expensive than the other two agents but has a somewhat higher rate of side effects and a bitter taste. There is concern about the carcinogenic potential of furazolidone and metronidazole, but this has not been evaluated for quinacrine. In the balance, we conclude that quinacrine is probably the preferable drug to use in the pediatric age group because of proven effectiveness and lower cost.
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PMID:Treatment of giardiasis: literature review and recommendations. 704 42

Furazolidone and quinacrine hydrochloride were compared for efficacy, toxicity, and ease of administration in 45 young children with giardiasis. With the initial course of therapy, the cure rate was 89% (17/19) with furazolidone and with quinacrine it was 64% (9/14) in children less than 5 years and 92% (11/12) in older children. Cure rates for all courses of therapy were 92% (24/26) with furazolidone and 53% (9/17) and 92% (12/13) in the younger and older children, respectively, treated with quinacrine. Quinacrine failure was usually due to severe vomiting. When re-treated with furazolidone, patients were cured. The disadvantages of furazolidone are the large volume of doses and the expense. In this study, furazolidone was more effective and better tolerated than quinacrine for the treatment of giardiasis.
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PMID:Furazolidone and quinacrine. Comparative study of therapy for giardiasis in children. 746 50

Empirical antimicrobial therapy is indicated in patients with diarrhoea who have high fever and systemic toxicity, dysenteric disease, or travellers' diarrhoea. Antimicrobials are essential for those with severe shigellosis and amoebiasis. They are useful or possibly useful for other forms of diarrhoeal disease including amoebiasis (milder forms), campylobacteriosis, cholera, giardiasis, shigellosis, and diarrhoea due to a variety of other laboratory-defined bacterial enteropathogens. Furazolidone is useful in infantile giardiasis and mildly effective in other forms of bacterial diarrhoea. Trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole is effective against Shigella spp. in ost parts of the world. Erythromycin is considered the treatment of choice for campylobacteriosis. For adults, the quinolone antimicrobials represent the most useful class of drugs for bacterial enteropathogens. Several dilemmas currently exist in the area. They include the lack of drugs for the therapy of trimethoprim-resistant shigellosis in children, overuse of antimicrobials in the developing world, and the potential for post-treatment prolongation of intestinal excretion of non-typhoid salmonellae. Antimicrobial chemoprophylaxis can be used in the rare person from an industrialized area during brief travels to a tropical region who has a serious underlying medical problem, cannot exercise care in what is eaten and drunk, and will have the purpose of the trip put at jeopardy should any illness develop (even that rendered short-term by effective therapy). For most people, therapy of illness is preferred to prophylaxis.
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PMID:Diarrhoeal disease: current concepts and future challenges. Antimicrobial therapy and prophylaxis. 810 47

The current treatment for leishmaniasis is unsatisfactory due to toxic side effects, high cost, and problems with drug resistance. Various approaches have been used to identify novel drug candidates to treat Leishmania sp. parasites including the use of re-purposed drugs. Furazolidone is a nitrofuran derivative with antiprotozoal and antibacterial activity and is used for the treatment of giardiasis. In the present work, we determined the in vitro antileishmanial activity of furazolidone and its ability to induce ultrastructural alterations of parasites. Promastigotes of Leishmania (L.) chagasi, Leishmania (V.) braziliensis, Leishmania (L.) major, and Leishmania (L.) amazonensis were highly susceptible to furazolidone, with IC(50) values ranging between 0.47 and 0.73 microg/mL. Furazolidone was also very effective against L. chagasi intracellular amastigotes, and despite mammalian cytotoxicity, the selectivity index was 8.0 in human monocytes. The drug also had limited toxicity in mice erythrocytes. Furazolidone demonstrated specific activity against Leishmania, a potential consequence of the lack of macrophage nitric oxide activation. As determined by electron transmission microscopy, drug treatment induced severe damage to the parasite mitochondria and nucleus. This older oral drug is an effective agent for the treatment of L. (L.) chagasi in vitro and is a novel candidate for further experimental studies.
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PMID:Furazolidone is a selective in vitro candidate against Leishmania (L.) chagasi: an ultrastructural study. 2035 51