DRUG SPECTRUM OF ACTIVITY: Today we have thousands of different types of drugs i different formulations treating different diseases. But the question would be; Which drug is best in treating disease X? And the immediate answer will be, there are several drugs that all can cure the same disease, X. And then the next question will be; How do I choose from drug A, B, C, and D the best and affordable drug for myself and or the patient? Then the answer will be; Before you think about affordability, look at the spectrum of activity for each specific drug and then choose accordingly. In our discussion here, we are going to look at how specific drugs will be able to treat specific infections with maximum efficiency but before we continue, if you have not been following us, you may also be interested in reading about; Dynamics of drugs and the human body and Classification of drugs
When it comes to drug actions especially antimicrobial agents or dugs that kill microbes, there is a range of organisms onto which the drug will be effective. Some drugs are capable of killing a wide range of microbes while others can just kill a few or even one strain of microbes. In our discussion here, we are going to look at the range of microbes that can be killed by specific drugs but before we continue, if you have not been following us, you may want to read about classification of drugs that we discussed recently from the link below; Classification od drugs
BROAD SPECTRUM ANTIBIOTICS: As we continue looking at antimicrobial agents, we have drugs that can target several microbes and therefore such drugs can be given in multiples infections with various microbes. These are collectively known as broad spectrum antibiotics. If these are antibacterial let's say, they will be able to handle both gram positives and gram negative bacteria or even having a potential to tackle on acid fast bacilli too. And we we have several classes of drugs here as we are going to be briefly mentioning a couple of them.
Previously we have been looking at the different types antibiotics basing on their mechanism of action and in some of our previous discussions we looked at classification of drugs basing on the microbes they act upon. Some of the examples of broad spectrum antibiotics we can have here are specific to bacteria and they include but not limited to; 1) Metronidazole, a nitroimidazole that can be used to treat both bacteria and protozoa.
NARROW SPECTRUM ANTIBIOTICS: So much we have seen when it comes to broad spectrum antibiotics, now let us look drugs with a narrow spectrum of activity. These are drugs that are limited in action and they will be able to kill just a selected number of microbes. In this set of drugs, we look at drugs like Isoniazid, which is almost entirely active on only mycobacteria.
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