Clindamycin hydrochloride

White Solid

Clindamycin hydrochloride is a salt of clindamycin, a semi-synthetic lincosamide. The hydrochloride salt forms at the basic N-ethylproline moiety and is the preferred pharmaceutical formulation. Like other members of the lincosamide family, clindamycin is a broad spectrum antibiotic with activity against anaerobic bacteria and protozoans. Clindamycin hydrochloride acts by binding to the 23S ribosomal subunit, blocking protein synthesis. Clindamycin hydrochloride has been extensively studied with over 8,000 literature citations.

Chemical structure: macrolide

This lincosanide antibiotic is used in topical form for acne, or systemically has been responsible for exanthematous rashes and acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis.

Clindamycin is recommended for the treatment of a widevariety of upper respiratory, skin, and tissue infections causedby susceptible bacteria. Its activity against streptococci,staphylococci, and pneumococci is indisputably high, and it isone of the most potent agents available against somenon–spore-forming anaerobic bacteria, the Bacteroides spp.in particular. An increasing number of reports of clindamycin-associated GI toxicity, which range in severity fromdiarrhea to an occasionally serious pseudomembranous colitis,have, however, caused some clinical experts to call for areappraisal of the role of this antibiotic in therapy.Clindamycin- (or lincomycin)-associated colitis may be particularlydangerous in elderly or debilitated patients and hascaused deaths in such individuals. The colitis, which is usuallyreversible when the drug is discontinued, is now believedto result from an overgrowth of a clindamycin-resistant strainof the anaerobic intestinal bacterium Clostridium difficile.229The intestinal lining is damaged by a glycoprotein endotoxinreleased by lysis of this organism.
The glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin has been effectivein the treatment of clindamycin-induced pseudomembranouscolitis and in the control of the experimentally induced bacterial condition in animals. Clindamycin shouldbe reserved for staphylococcal tissue infections, such as cellulitisand osteomyelitis, in penicillin-allergic patients andfor severe anaerobic infections outside the central nervoussystem. Ordinarily, it should not be used to treat upper respiratorytract infections caused by bacteria sensitive to othersafer antibiotics or in prophylaxis.