Comparative-Study Of Effectiveness Of 9,3''-Diacetylmidecamycin (Mom) And Midecamycin On Respiratory-Tract Infections

A comparative clinical study of 9, 3′′-diacetylmidecamycin (MOM) with Midecamycin (MDM) was carried out by randomized double blind techniques in order to compare the clinical efficacy, side effects and usefulness in treatment of 218 patients with lower respiratory tract infections (mycoplasmal pneumonia, primary atypical pneumonia and mild bacterial pneumonia). The drug treatments used were 600 mg of MOM per day (111 cases) and 1, 200 mg of MDM per day (107 cases), and these doses were administered orally every day for 14 days whenever possible.The results were as follows.1) There were no particularly significant biases between the MOM and MDM administration groups in relation to the background factors of their respective patients.2) The Evaluation Subcommittee reported the following results for the efficacy rates of these two drug treatments: 79.3% for the MOM group and 85.0% for the MDM group when all of the treated patients were considered. No significant differences were found between the treatment groups in relation to these data.3) The physicians-in-charge also evaluated the efficacy of the drug treatments. In this case, the overall efficacy rates were 78.1% for the MOM group and 81.1% for the MDM group. With regard to the mycoplasmal pneumonia cases, the number of “excellent” efficacy cases was large in the MDM administration group, and the results in this treatment group were found to be significantly superior to the results in the MOM administration group.4) The degrees of improvement achieved with regard to the various clinical symptoms and laboratory test results were found to be approximately the same for the two drug administration groups.5) With regard to the microbiological results of the drug treatments, it was not possible to perform any evaluation because the number of isolated causative microorganisms was small.6) The side effects recorded included gastrointestinal symptoms and elevated transaminase levels, but none of these side effects were severe. No significant differences were found between the two drug administration groups with regard to the side effects.7) The usefulness of these drug treatments was evaluated. There were no significant differences between the MOM and MDM groups.On the basis of the above results, it is clear that a 600 mg/day dosage of MOM, which is only half of the1, 200 mg/day dosage of MDM, gives nearly the same efficacy as MDM in the treatment of respiratory tract infections such as mycoplasmal pneumonia, PAP and mild bacterial pneumonia. Moreover, as with MDM, the incidence of side effects with MOM is low.Accordingly, MOM can be expected to have a high degree of usefulness in the treatment of respiratory tract infections.