Comparison of ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline on Klebsiella pneumoniae : Time-kill curve analysisSubscribe to RSS feedSubscribe to RSS feed

Abstract

Background

Antibiotic resistance is a significant problem in the world, so optimization of antibiotic use is needed.

Klebsiella pneumoniae


is a Gram-negative bacterium that causes bacteremia, sepsis, UTIs, pneumonia, nosocomial infections and ESBL-producing bacterium. ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline are broad-spectrum antibiotics, including in WHO essential drugs.

Objective

The study tested antibiotics that most effectively inhibited

Klebsiella pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ESBL invitro with

time-kill curve


analysis.

Method

This experiment used

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ATCC isolates, stored clinical isolates of

Klebsiella pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ESBL, and the control group. Isolates other than control were challenged with

ciprofloxacin

,

cotrimoxazole

,

and doxycycline


oral preparations with concentrations of 1, 2, 4 MIC at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 24 h. At each hour, the bacteria were cultured, incubated, calculated the number of colonies. The results were analyzed with time-kill curve and tested statistics. Statistical analysis used included ANOVA, post-Hoc, Mann Whitney, and Kruskal Willis tests with

p


< 0.05.

Results

Ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole

,

and doxycycline


in this study had inhibition effects on

Klebsiella pneumoniae


non-ESBL and

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ESBL.

Ciprofloxacin


had the best inhibitory effect. Statistically, the most meaningful differences of antibiotics in

ciprofloxacin


and

cotrimoxazole


at four and 24 h (

p


< 0.001), in concentrations of 1 MIC and 4 MIC at 2 h (

p


< 0.001), and in

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ESBL and

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ATCC at 8 h (

p


= 0.024).

Conclusion

Ciprofloxacin


is the best antibiotic to inhibit the growth of

Klebsiella pneumoniae


non-ESBL and

Klebsiella pneumoniae


ESBL compared to

cotrimoxazole


and

doxycycline

. The inhibitory effect increases with an increase in concentration.

Highlights

  • Ciprofloxacin is effective in inhibiting

    Klebsiella pneumoniae


    ESBL and non-ESBL.

  • Increasing the dose of antibiotics inhibits the growth of

    Klebsiella pneumoniae

    .

  • Ciprofloxacin is more effective than cotrimoxazole and doxycycline in

    Klebsiella pneumoniae

    .

Introduction

Klebsiella pneumoniae


(

K. pneumoniae

) is a Gram-negative bacterium that can cause bacteremia, sepsis, urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and nosocomial infections . A study conducted in hospitals in 10 Asian countries from 2008 to 2009 found

K. pneumoniae


as the most common cause of nosocomial infections, namely pneumonia associated with ventilator installation . Antibiotics resistance has become a significant problem worldwide. In the era of increasing antibiotic resistance and the lack of discovery of new antibiotics, it is necessary to optimize the use of existing antibiotics to treat infections . Antibiotic resistance of

Klebsiella


spp. is highest in Asia (≥60%), reflecting an alarming increase in opposition to this bacterium. Increased resistance, especially to various classes of antibiotics classified by WHO as essential drugs, so the used of new and more broad-spectrum antibiotics must be limited if there are still narrower-spectrum and effective antibiotics .

The prevalence of

K. pneumoniae


infection was 13% in America, 5% in Pakistan, 64.2% in Nigeria, 33.9% in India, 17.4% in Denmark, and 14.1% in Singapore.

K. pneumoniae


Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase (ESBL) infection in Indonesia was 35.35%, a total of 297 isolates from patients hospitalized from January–April 2005 and 38.5% of all isolates from October 2014–May 2015 at Surabaya ,. In a study conducted in Turkey in 2016, there were 190 patients with nosocomial bacteremia caused by

K. pneumoniae


with a mortality rate of 47.9% . Another study in Taiwan in 2020 involving 150 patients with bacteremia caused by

K. pneumoniae


had a mortality rate of 20–40% .

Ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline are antibiotics used for a long time and are included in WHO essential drugs because of their excellent efficacy, minimal side effects, and relatively inexpensive. There are also injection and oral dosage forms with good bioavailability making them easier to use and relatively easy to obtain. The 2021 hospital antimicrobial stewardship guidelines from the Ministry of Health also classify these antibiotics in the access group ,. These antibiotics are still effective enough to treat various Gram-negative infections based on available data, including

K. pneumoniae

. The study in France with 40 samples of

K. pneumoniae

, 75% susceptible to ciprofloxacin, also analyzed the time-kill curve of ciprofloxacin against

K. pneumoniae


. A study in China demonstrated the use of cotrimoxazole for

K. pneumoniae


in vitro. Of 812 isolates of

K. pneumoniae

, 175 (21.6%) isolates were resistant to cotrimoxazole . A study in Mumbai, India, with a retrospective method involving 2951 samples collected from January 2017–December 2018 with 263 of these samples were isolates of

K. pneumoniae


from sputum, showed doxycycline susceptibility of 68.4% . Clinical infectious disease stated that based on pharmacokinetic and MIC data for UTIs caused by

Enterobacter


ESBL, doxycycline could potentially be used for therapy .

Time kill curve can be used to study antimicrobial activity that depends on concentration and time-dependent, so this method serves as an alternative option that provides more detailed and dynamic information than MIC. Considering the sensitive profile data to ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline antibiotics, this study aimed to compare the effectiveness of these antibiotics in vitro against

K. pneumoniae


and

K. pneumoniae


ESBL isolates at a hospital in the form of an analysis of the bacterial time-kill curve.

Method

The study used a case-control (experimental) analysis with a posttest control group design. The subjects used were

K. pneumoniae


ESBL and non-ESBL, replicated 6 times. Antibiotics used included ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline. This study was conducted from June 2021 to May 2022. The antibiotic doses used in

K. pneumoniae


varied, including ciprofloxacin 0.25, 0.5, 1 p/mL, cotrimoxazole 2, 4, and 8 p/mL, and 4, 8, and 16 p/mL. Furthermore, the time-kill was evaluated for each antibiotic exposure, including 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h.

Before the examination, the number of colonies in the CFU/mL log was calculated first. If clinical isolates were found stored with the identification of fungi, sterile culture results, and clinical isolates of

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL and

K. pneumoniae


ESBL were identified and tested for antibiotic susceptibility. Manually, the isolate could not be used. The measurement results were analyzed using statistical product and service solution (SPSS) software version 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). The analysis used were ANOVA, post-Hoc, Mann Whitney, and Kruskal Willis with

p


< 0.05.

Results

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ESBL,

and K. pneumoniae


ATCC on administering of ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and cotrimoxazole 1 MIC at 2–8 h all showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in colony number of 1-2-log CFU/mL.

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ATCC, administration of ciprofloxacin, doxycycline 2 MIC at 2–6 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in colony number of 1-2-log CFU/mL while at 8 h showed bactericidal activity with a reduction in the number of colonies by 3 log CFU/mL. Administration of cotrimoxazole 2 MIC at 2–8 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in the number of colonies by 1-2-log CFU/mL.

K. pneumoniae


ESBL on the administration of ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and cotrimoxazole 2 MICs at 2–8 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in colony number of 1-2-log CFU/ml. The distribution of time-kill

K. pneumoniae


after antibiotic administration could be seen in


Figs. 1–6

.

Fig. 1

Time-kill graph of the number of non-ESBL

K. pneumoniae


colonies at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h against antibiotics ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and cotrimoxazole at 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC.

Fig. 2

Time-kill graph of the number of

K. pneumoniae


ESBL colonies at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h against antibiotics ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and cotrimoxazole at 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC.

Fig. 3

Time-kill graph of the number of

K. pneumoniae


ATCC colonies at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h against the antibiotic’s ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and cotrimoxazole at 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC.

Fig. 4

Time-kill graph of the number of colonies of

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ESBL, and

K. pneumoniae


ATCC at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h against the administration of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin at concentrations of 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC.

Fig. 5

Time-kill graph of the number of colonies of

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ESBL, and

K. pneumoniae


ATCC at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h against doxycycline antibiotics at concentrations of 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC.

Fig. 6

Time-kill graph of the number of colonies of

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ESBL, and

K. pneumoniae


ATCC at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 24 h against cotrimoxazole antibiotics at concentrations of 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC.

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ATCC on the administration of ciprofloxacin 4 MIC at 2–4 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in colony number of 1-2-log CFU/mL while at 6–8 h showed activity bactericidal with a reduction in the number of colonies by 3-log CFU/mL. In

K. pneumoniae


ESBL on the administration of ciprofloxacin 4 MIC at 2–6 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in the number of colonies by 1-2-log CFU/mL, while at 8 h showed bactericidal activity with a reduction in colony number by 3-log CFU/mL.

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ESBL, and

K. pneumoniae


ATCC on the administration of doxycycline 4 MIC at 2–6 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in the number of colonies by 1-2-log CFU/mL while at 8 h showed activity bactericidal with a reduction in the number of colonies by 3 log CFU/mL. Administration of cotrimoxazole 4 MIC at 2–8 h showed bacteriostatic activity with a reduction in the number of colonies by 1-2-log CFU/mL.

K. pneumoniae


non-ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ESBL,

K. pneumoniae


ATCC, on the administration of ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, cotrimoxazole 1 MIC, 2 MIC, 4 MIC showed that all colonies began to grow back at 24 h. Results of the analysis of the effectiveness of time-kill

K. pneumoniae


could be seen in


Tables 1 and 2

.

Table 1

Analysis of differences in the effectiveness of antibiotics used in

K. pneumoniae

.

Time to Kill

Antibiotic

CI 95%

p

-value

2

Ciprofloxacin

Doxycycline

0.023–0.258

0.020

Doxycycline

Cotrimoxazole

−0.161– 0.074

0.453

Cotrimoxazole

Ciprofloxacin

0.067–0.302

0.003

4

Ciprofloxacin

Doxycycline

0.089–0.407

0.004

Doxycycline

Cotrimoxazole

0.038–0.356

0.017

Cotrimoxazole

Ciprofloxacin

0.286–0.603

<0.001

6

Ciprofloxacin

Doxycycline

−0.004– 0.451

0.054

Doxycycline

Cotrimoxazole

−0.027– 0.427

0.082

Cotrimoxazole

Ciprofloxacin

0.196–0.651

0.001

8

Ciprofloxacin

Doxycycline

0.015

Doxycycline

Cotrimoxazole

0.015

Cotrimoxazole

Ciprofloxacin

0.005

24

Ciprofloxacin

Doxycycline

0.241–0.818

0.001

Doxycycline

Cotrimoxazole

−0.075– 0.502

0.140

Cotrimoxazole

Ciprofloxacin

0.454–1.032

<0.001

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Apr 3, 2026 | Posted by in PAIN MEDICINE | Comments Off on Comparison of ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, and doxycycline on Klebsiella pneumoniae : Time-kill curve analysisSubscribe to RSS feedSubscribe to RSS feed

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